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THE JAPAN EXPEDITION 



JAPAN 



AND 



AROUND THE WORLD 



AN ACCOUNT OF 



THREE VISITS TO TflE JAPANESE EMPIRE 



WITH SKETCHES OF 

MADEIBA, ST. HELENA, CAPE OP GOOD HOPE, MAUBHTOS, 
CEYLON, SINGAPORE, CHINA, AND LOO-CHOO 

Bt J. W: SPALDING 

OF THE V. S. STEAM-FBIGATS lUTISSISSIPPI, FLAG SHIP OF THE EXPXIXmON 

WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS IN TINT 




REDFIELD 

34 BEEKMAN STREET, NEW YORK 
1855. 




Entered, according 4o Act of Congress, in the year 1855, 

By J. S. REDFIELD, 

in the Clerk's OflBce of the District Court of the United States, in and for the "* 

Southern District of New York. 



%o^ 



^h 



SAVAGE & MCCREA, STKUEOTyPEKS, 

13 Chambers Street, N. Y. 



/ 



/ 



10 



PREFACE. 



The kindness and courtesy of that fine officer and 
estimable gentleman, Commander Sydney Smith Lee, 
in conferring upon the writer a position on the ship 
under his command, gave him the opportunity of see- 
ing the '' wonders of the world abroad," in the Japan 
Expedition. 

The following pages do not profess to be a history 
of Japan, of which there are already a number extant, 
but only embody observations of what came under 
notice, in a cruise of nearly two and a half years. 
They do not pretend to invariable accuracy, the wri- 
ter having kept no journal, and having had to depend 
on scattered memoranda, jottings down to friends, and 
to memory. He has endeavored to tell the tale of his 
travels, as his eyes told it to him. 

He has indulged in no adjectives about the ocean, 
because he believes that there has been more deliber- 
ate nonsense written upon it, than upon any other 
thing in all Nature. 
Richmond, Va., 1855. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Leave the United States — " Old Ironsides" Mississippi — ^A Man-of- 
War at Night — Gulf Stream — Music — ^First Foreign Land — The 
Washerwomen — ^Funchal-— Its Harbor— Cavalleros — The Wine— 
A Consul— iVbssa Senhora do Monte — The Coral— A Hospital — 
A Prison — ^Dago Pauperism— Donna Clementina— Good-by, Ma- 
deira PAGE 8 

CHAPTER IL 

At Sea again — The Canaries — The " Trades," Incipient and Real— 
Man-of-War Existence — Drills— Running down the "Trades"— 
Small-Pox-— Christmas that was not Christmas-^First General Or- 
der issued — Under Steam again — Man Overboard — Crossing the 
Line — Arrrival at the Ocean-Prison— St. Helena — Hot January- 
Reverberation — Slavers — James^ Town — A Yiewfroma Summit- 
Tomb of the Great Emperor — Jonathan — To Long wood — The New 
House — ^Plantation House — ^A Bust of Napoleon — -Departure from 
St. Helena 27 

CHAPTER IIL 

Cape of Good Hope — Shadows — Cape Town — Sights in the Street — 
Drive to Constantia — The Wine — Kaffir War — Botanical — ^Leave 
Cape Town — The Birkenhead — Cattle at Sea — Anti-Scorbutic — St. 
Valentine^s Day, and the " Styx"— The Indian Ocean ... 45 

CHAPTER IV. 

Isle of France— John Bull under a Torrid Sun— Port Louis and its 
Bazar — ^DifFerent Races and Religions — In the Country at Mauri- 
tius — John Chinaman-— 'Pamplemouses — Paul and Virginia — ^A 
Botanical Garden — Reality as well as Romance— Hurricanes — His- 
tory of the Island— The " 22d"— Fruits— Leave Mauritius— Differ- 
ence of Time 56 



b CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER Y. 

" Light, Ho !" — Ceylon's Spicy Breezes, and Sir John Mandeville — 
Point de Galle — Ceylonese Troops— D'Honeys — The Natives — 
Walled Town — Sandal Shoon and Mohammedan Temple and 
School — Greek Slaves in Bronze — Hirsute and Citronella — Priess- 
nitz' Doings — Pigeon Express — Ceylon Historically — A Siamese 
Captain— Departure from Point de Galle — Bay of Bengal — Straits 
of Malacca — Pulo-Penang — The Cleopatra — ^Letters — Anchor at 
Singapore— Malay Boats — The East by Anticipation — Junks — 
Gong-Beating — The Esplanade — Malay Houses — Sago — Hospitals 
— Joss-House — Prison — Rajah of Johore — ^Leavc Singapore — Eirst 
of April — Intense Heat — Cathay— Macao— Hong Kong — Salute 
of Welcome — Oriental Salute page 64 

CHAPTER YI. 

Macao — The Donna iliana-^Cathedrals and Ports — Camoens — ^An 
English Missionary — Death of the Governor — ^Fast and Tanka Boats 
— Bocca Tigris— Clipper-Ships and Junks — Chartering a Tender- — 
Eirst of May — The Yang-tse-kiang— Agriculture and the Chinese — 
Shanghai and the Bund— The Missionaries— Sing-Song — Gambling 
— ^Dead Beggars — Nautical Dramatics — The Shanghae Races- 
Shifting the Elag — Supply Ashore — Wreck of a Junk — ^Bring the 
Crew of the Junk Aboard —Left for Loo- Choo 87 

CHAPTER YIL 

Great Loo-Choo Island — General Orders — Outer Door of the Hermetic 
Empire — Historic Outline of the Loo-Choo Islands — Approach to 
them — Loo-Chooan Simplicity — ^Dress — Bettelheim — Napa— Lan- 
guage — Eoreign Graves — Horse-Portage — The Prince Regent — To 
Sheudi — Feast — International Sentiment — Sheudi — Cyclopean Ma- 
sonry — '^ Old Napa" — ^Bonin Group — Return to Napa^ — ^First Yisit 
to Japan — ''The Fourth" on the Sea — A Meteor 100 

CHAPTER YIII. 

Gipango — Japan an "Unknown Land" — ^Works on Japan — Koemp- 
fer — Japanese Mythology^ — Geography — History — Japanese "John 
Doe" — Napoleon No. HI. of the Mongols — Kublai-Khan — ^Euro- 
pean Intercourse — ^English Yiews about the Opening of Japan 132 

CHAPTER IX. 

Sounding-Spars — Foogee Yama — Entrance to the Bay of Yedo — ^Pre- 
cautionary Measures — Uraga — Troops — " Old Hundred" — Sound- 
ing — ^Yezimon — Gorihama — The Landing — Joust or Tourney— 



CONTENTS. 7 

Audience — President's Letter — Anecdotal — ^Fortifications— Sound- 
ing — Japanese Presents — Costume — Junks — Leave Japan — A 
Burial at Sea — ^A Cyclone — Loo- Choc ...... page 143 

CHAPTER X. 

China — The Rebellion — Hong Hospitality — ^Blenheim Reach — Torrid 
— Consular Courts — Canton — Feast of the Lanterns — Howqua's 
Garden-— Sallie Baboos — Cum-sing-Moon — Death of an Officer — 
Opium Hulks — The Traffic — Effects of Opium — Its Sale — Smug- 
gling — Emperor of Japan Dead — ^Loss of Boat's Crew of the Ply- 
mouth — The American Commissioner — Around the Walls of Can- 
ton — Chance for a Wife — Temple of Honan — Hong Kong . 176 

CHAPTER XL 

Leave China for Second Visit to Japan — ^Formosa — ^Napa-Keang — ^A 
Refugee not a Koszta — Proselyting/ — Dr. Bettelheim and a Loo- 
Chooan Sangrado — Coal Depot — Sheudi — Cumshaws — -Off for the 
Bay of Yedo — ^Dangerous Navigation-^Snow — Macedonian Ashore 
Foogee Yama — ^Bay of Yedo — Where to Negotiate — 22d of Febru- 
ary — Japanese Boats — Visiters — Japanese at Dinner — Swords — - 
Aversion to the Cross — The Landing — The Commissioners — The 
Audience — Answer to the President's Letter — A Japanese Repast — 
Their Troops — " T'su-bi-ki" — Coal — A Christian Burial in Japan 
— American Presents — An Ericsson Two Centuries Ago — A Chap- 
lain — ^Negotiations — Japanese Presents — Athletes — Entertainment 
of Japanese Commissioners^ — Signing of the Treaty — Yezimon — 
Attempt to reach Yedo — The "Happy Despatch" — ^Emperor in 
Disguise — ^Leave Bay of Yedo for Simoda 204 

CHAPTER XII. 

Simoda or Lower Field — Surveying — ^Japanese Spies — Temples — 
Sintooism — Another Pilgrim's Progress — A Night's Lodging — ^Bar- 
gaining — ^Japanese Women — Indiscriminate Bathing — Turtle Soup 
— ^An Adventure — ^Buddhist Temple — Midnight Visiters — In a 
Cage — Japanese Epistolarians — A Great Secret — ^Defences — Foo- 
gco Yama 264 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Departure for Hakodadi — Ohosima — ^Printing at Sea — Straits of San- 
gar — Arrive at Hakodadi — Magnificent Bay-— The City — A Stam- 
pede — Interview with the Authorities — Arranging the Currency — 
Purchasing — ^A Large Temple — ^Bonzes— Worshipping— Order of 



« CONTENTS. 

the Blind — ^A Yiew from Hakodadi Yama — A Lion Playing Paint- 
er — ^Ni ! Ni !— A Port— Burials from the Vandalia — Japanese and 
Ethiopics — Arrival of Functionaries — Characteristic Communica- 
tions — Hakodadi Eggs — ^Leave Hakodadi — ^Fog . . page 292 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Foogee — Return to Simoda — Additional Regulations — Veneration for 
lyeyas — The Dutch at Desima — Japanese Princes and Mercantile 
Pursuits — Russia a Bugbear — The Currency Question — The Mon- 
etary System of Japan — ^Buoys — Sample of Coal — Stones for the 
Washington Monument — Taste for Music — Things by Lottery — 
Japanese Lacquer and Porcelain— -Tea — Japanese Game of Chess, 
or " Sho-ho-ye" — A Second Robinson Crusoe — ^Leave Japan for 
China — Macedonian to Keelong and Manilla — Island of Oo — A 
Strange sail acting strangely — In Napa Roadstead — Man Deser- 
vedly killed — -His Highness the Prince-Regent — Russian Admiral 
Pontiatine — Sermons on Shipboard— The Status of Loo-Choo — 
Compact with Loo-Choo — Boom-a-Laddying with a Broad Pennant 
— Great Pomp in our Institutions — ^Farewell to Loo-Choo . .312 

CHAPTER XV. 

J^ng Kong Again — ^Letters — The Intestine Troubles- — Triangulating 
between Hong-Kong, Macao, and Whampoa— The Rebels — Chinese 
Fighting — An Emperor^s Proclamation;— Preparations for the De- 
parture of the American Opperbevelhebber — Daybook and Ledger 
Epistolarians — A Title — Protection — A Jollyboat Steamer — ^Eru- 
dition about Columbus, De Gama, and Others — A Letter from His 
Excellency Perry — Syce Silver Service — More Mercantile Episto- 
larians and Parvenuism — ^No Treaty of Commerce with Japan — 
Name Great among the Heathen — ^Departure of Opperbevelhebber 
in the English Mail-Steamer — Mississippi's Third Visit to Japan — 
The Last of the " Porpoise" — Arrive at Simoda again^^Official In- 
tercourse of Captain Lee with the Authorities — Courtesies — Its-evoos 
and a Revolver — The Ship Ho-o-maro — Cotton Cloths distributed — 
Chances of a Trade with Japan — ^Final Departure from the Country 
—Supplemental — Exchange of Ratifications of the Treaty — Simoda 
after an Earthquake— Loss of the Russian Frigate Diana — The In- 
exorable Laws of Japan — ^English and French at Nangasaki — The 
Cruise of the Mississippi around the World 345 

Appendix , , . . , 363 



THE 



JAPAN EXPEDITION. 



CHAPTER I. 



The cruel treatment which had long been practised 
by that singular and secluded people, the Japanese, 
toward American whalers who were thrown by the 
misfortune of shipwreck upon their coasts, the in- 
centive of mercantile cupidity, and the urgency of 
personal ambition, induced the government of the 
United States, in 1852, to project an expedition to 
Japan, to obtain some assurance from the government 
of the country against a continuance or repetition of 
the inhospitality and cruelty inflicted upon our unfor- 
tunate citizens, and, if possible, to open the sources 
of trade. The East India squadron was accordingly 
augmented for this purpose, and Commodore Mat- 
thew Calbraith Perry was invested with the command, 
and charged with the performance of the duty. 

After almost conjugating delay in all its moods 
and tenses, induced by the failure of the boilers of 



10 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

the unfortunate " Princeton," and other causes, his 
flag-ship was ready for sea in November, 1862 ; and 
on the 24th of this month and year, with a desire to 
visit the hermetic empire, whetted by reading the 
Dutch historians, I found myself, as commander's 
clerk, on board of her. At midday we had dropped, 
not below the '^ kirk or hill," but below the hospital 
at Norfolk, and night found us ploughing deeply the 
ocean in the direction of Madeira ; and before a very 
late hour the gleams from the Cape Henry lighthouse 
disappeared altogether. 

The ship was the old steam-frigate " Mississippi," 
which, as her name is a synonyme for the " father of 
waters," may be termed the father of our war-steam- 
ers, having been the consort of the pioneer ship, the 
Missouri, destroyed by fire on her first cruise, under 
the rock of Gibraltar. She had been engaged unremit- 
tingly since she first slid from her ways. The power 
of her engines had pulled from a reef in the Gulf 
a large ship, and saved to the country the fine frigate 
Cumberland. The shot and shell from one of her 
sixty-eights, in the naval battery at Vera Cruz, had 
contributed to the downfall of the castle of San Juan. 
She had lain at her anchor near the site of once clas- 
sic Athens, and in full view of what now remains of 
the once great city of Hannibal. She had once 
sought shelter from a Levanter near Brundusium 
that was, with its Appian way. Her paddle-wheels 
churning up the water of the Black sea, announced 



''the MISSISSIPPI." 11 

the first appearance of an American man-of-war in 
that stormy water ; and on her decks, surrounded by 
his late fellows in exile, Kossuth, fresh from the 
damp of his Kutahia prison, addressed the seething 
populace around in the harbor of Marseilles, with 
a fervor and eloquence which almost extenuated so 
indefensible a violation of the national hospitality 
which our nation was then extending him ; and now 
the old Mississippi was leaving her own country, 
bound to the other side of the great globe, bearing 
the hopes of many, and embarked in a mission which 
might be successful — which might, perhaps, come to 
naught. 

I said she ploughed deeply on getting beyond the 
Capes, because, with the considerate intelligence and 
humanity which preside over our naval affairs, send- 
ing boxes of guns to sea with national names, bringing 
about such sad losses as those of the Albany and the 
Porpoise, the Mississippi, designed by her constructor 
to draw eighteen feet of water, and to carry four hun- 
dred and fifty tons of coal, has her bunkers enlarged 
to the capacity of six hundred tons, additional lines 
of copper put upon her, and goes out drawing twenty- 
one feet, her guards but a short distance from the 
water. In this state we left the United States ; her 
decks not yet cleared of the stores hastily put aboard 
for the different messes ; the lengthened visages of 
sad people all around, thinking whether they had 
omitted anything in their notes of last adieu sent back 



12 . THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

by the Pilot ; the mustering and stationing of a new 
crew at their division and fire quarters ; the making 
everything ready for sea, all presented such a novel 
scene to one who was on a man-of-war underway for 
the first time, that he was too much engrossed in ob- 
serving, to tell his " native land good-night," turning 
to do which, he found that it had " faded," not over 
the " waters blue," but behind an expanse of dull 
slate-colored ocean, which the heavy striking of our 
deeply-immersed paddles was slowly and drowsily 
disturbing. There was none of the graceful undula- 
tory motion, and bellying out of the great white can- 
vass of the sailing-ship, which writers of much im- 
agination and nautical turn of mind, delight so inucli 
to sing about. It was only the sturdy prose of a 
warlike old steamer belching from the jaws of her 
great funnel columns of thick black smoke, which 
separated at her mainmast, or rolled away in dense 
masses astern, perversely holding on her way to the 
port of her destination. The "loguey" motion of the 
ship, while it kept her decks wet from the swashing 
of a cross sea over her head rail, at least had the ad- 
vantage to a landsman of enabling him to get on his 
'^ sea-legs" all the sooner. 

The scene at night on a man-of-war, is one full of 
interest to him who sees it for the first time. The 
decks, busily thronged during the day by the men in 
the performance of their duties, at an early hour of 
the night, with the exception of the watch, are appa- 



MADEIRA. 13 

rently deserted ; a number equal to the population 
of a small village, crowded close together, swing in 
their pendent beds in oblivious sleep, which the ex- 
ertions of the day makes more profound, leaving 
nothing to disturb the quiet of the vessel, save the 
half-hour striking of the ship's bell, and the quick 
responses of the different look-outs assuring their 
watchfulness, or the drumming of the wheels as they 
send the yesty water along the side. 

In a few days we crossed that great liquid fortifi- 
cation of our coast — tlie Gulf-stream — when the tem- 
perature became greatly moderated, our stoves were 
taken down, the cloudy skies that we had had dis- 
appeared, and we hailed the sun. The water had 
changed from 41^ to 71°, the sun came up magnifi- 
cently from the ocean, and the air felt like a balmy 
spring morning; away off in the southeast floated 
piles of clouds like inverted illuminated pearl-shells, 
and for the first time since leaving Norfolk, we were 
enabled to look upon the deep blue sea, and the blue 
deep sea. Then, too, our fine band, composed of 
twenty-three brass and reed instruments, discoursed 
its most pleasant strains for the first time since we 
had been out, under the leadership of a talented old 
Italian musician — the only man I ever saw who, with 
a nice " ear for music," kept both of his auriculars 
continually stopped with wool. 

The cry of '' Land, ho !" on the evening of the 11th 
of December, announced our vicinity to Madeira, after 



14 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

a rough and lonely passage from the United States 
of eighteen days. The weather proving rough, we 
wore ship and stood off during the night, and early 
in the morning again stood for the island, and it was 
not long before we were running under the lee of its 
northern side. Madeira at a distance, wrapped in 
its hazy robe of blue, presents the appearance of a 
huge monster reposing on the water, but running in 
imder the land, the aspect is far more attractive. 
Being the first foreign land on which my eyes had 
ever rested, I gazed with increasing pleasure on the 
parti-colored soil, on the graceful and silvery cas- 
cades precipitating^ themselves down its steep shores, 
presenting the appearance of tapering spires of 
churches, while nestling here and there on the cliffs, 
amid thick verdure, were the happy-looking quintas 
and farmhouses. Toward evening, leaving the sin- 
gular formed rocks " Las Desertas" on our left, we 
rounded the northeasternmost point of the island, and 
Funchal, in its terraced beauty, came in full view. 
'We fired a gun and hoisted a jack for a pilot, but we 
were permitted to approach without the aid of that 
functionary. It being Sunday, perhaps they did not 
ofiiciate on that day. Just before sundown we came 
to in the harbor, near the Pontinha, and immediately 
on anchoring were boarded by the Portuguese health- 
officer, who, finding we had no contagious disease 
aboard, granted us pratique. The second promptest 
visiters to welcome us were the washerwomen, who 



FUNCHAL. 16 

are all eager for the possession of the soiled linen, at 
the same time evincing a wonder of recognition and 
recollection perfectly satisfactory to themselves, but 
not at all convincing to anybody else. One old shriv- 
elled dame of a laundress insisted that I had visited 
the island before, and pretended to adhere to the 
opinion with the tenacity of Dolly, in Oliver Twist, 
when she called upon the good bystanders to make 
her brother go home. This was old Madam Yesus, 
and, as my poor battered garments subsequently 
proved, she washed " not wisely, but too well." 
They were eminently communicative on general top- 
ics, told us how "mucher pauvre" they were, gave us 
the first news of the approaching famine, and to men 
who had been tumbling about the ocean for over half 
a month, the unsavory intelligence that wine, which 
but a short time before could be bought for forty 
cents per bottle, could now only be obtained for a 
dollar. 

Funchal, from the water, presents a very attractive 
appearance to the traveller who sees it for the first 
time. I don't know when I have been more im- 
pressed with the beauty of any scene, than when from 
the deck of our ship, with a delicious atmosphere that 
obliterate(i all recollection of the month being Decem- 
ber, a setting sun more keenly defining and causing to 
loom up each object, I looked upon its bright houses, 
made more so by the deep red of their tiles, as they 
rose in a terraced crescent, one above another, the con- 



^6 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

vent of Santa Clara, the deep-hued verdure that filled 
up the interstices of the picture, the Loo Rock fort, 
and the cathedral in the foreground, with just enough 
of time-stain on its towers to make more venerable 
its front, and the tortuous paved road, running up the 
hills like an immense, stony serpent, terminating at 
the church of our " Lady of the Mount," elevated 
nineteen hundred feet above the sea ; and the vine- 
yards in the distance. 

Being an open roadstead, with the wind from a cer- 
tain direction a very heavy sea tumbles into the harbor, 
and there is at all times a considerable surf breaking 
on the beach. On going ashore you have to employ Por- 
tuguese surf-boats, which are much better constructed 
for purposes of landing than our own. On either side, 
not far from the keel, they have projecting pieces re- 
sembling the side-fins of a dolphin, which gives them 
much steadiness in a sea-way, while head and stern 
they have perpendicular handles as it were. As they 
near the beach, one of the boatmen jumps over into 
the water, and, seizing the piece at the prow, keeps 
the boat head on, when the succeeding swell sets her 
high, if not dry, upon the sand, and you are ashore. 
Your way thither may only be delayed a short time, 
by the officer contrabandista, who, pulling alongside, 
touches his hat, and proceeds, hj an inspection of 
your boat, to see whether his aquatic countrymen are 
not attempting to smuggle ashore such things as soap 
and tobacco, which his most gracious sovereign of 



LAZZARONI. 17 

Portugal has been pleased to reserve as a government 
monopoly. When the weather is rather rough, the 
customary place of landing is the Pontinha, a steep 
rock terminating an arched causeway, or kind of 
breakwater, from which the coal is usually embarked 
for the steamers stopping at the island. The scene 
presented, or the horrible clamor that salutes your 
ears, is not particularly calculated to prolong the 
pleasant illusion which the more distant sight of the 
place gave you. You no sooner put your foot on the 
stone stairs than your winding way of ascent is beset 
by innumerable lazzaroni most offensive in habit and 
appearance, whose rabid importunities for alms will 
not permit you to say them nay. Once through this 
crowd of '' dago" pauperism — the most squalid and 
effete of all pauperism, your movements on the cause- 
way are impeded by the boisterous calls of the Borro 
Querros, with their horses already saddled and bridled 
for '^ gentlemin" to ride. The bellowing guttural of 
one fellow provokes your attention to his steed, in 
whose praises he is loud, having gotten which, he digs 
him in flank, and dashes off over the stony pavement, 
to show you his paces. Your charger selected (I 
had a weakness in the matter of a fine bay myself,) 
the din ceases. Our party, consisting of five or six 
well mounted, determined on a gallop to the " Petite 
Coral," calling on the polite and hospitable consul 
on our way thither. One peculiarity strikes you on 
starting, that is, that your dago friend, of whom you 



18 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

obtained your charger, acts as a kind of equerry dur- 
ing your ride, and the better to enable him to accom- 
pany you, when you are inclined to give your horse 
the rein, he seizes that animal by the tail with one 
hand, keeping off the flies with a wisp in the other, or 
uses it as an accelerator on his haunches, holding on 
meanwhile with a grip which the Kirk Alloway witches 
would have envied when they brought about thditjinale 
to " poor Maggy." 

The streets through which we rode were quite nar- 
row, and enclosed by balconied houses of two stories, 
or stuccoed garden walls, over which the graceful 
banana leaf bent, or a cornice of beautiful running 
flowers was to be seen. From the nearly closed case- 
ment pretty dark eyes peeped down upon you, pretty 
I fear, because scarcely any other features were visi- 
ible. The native women we met in the street walked 
closely veiled, which none who met them desired 
to have done away with, if a truant zephyr once 
gave a sight of their swarthy faces. Your atten- 
tion is attracted by the rather picturesque costume 
of the natives, which consists of a loose shirt drawn 
at the waist, knee breeches made full, white boots 
which are regularly chalked, and on the summit of 
their cranium they wear a cap of cloth bearing an 
identical resemblance to an apothecary's glass funnel 
inverted. The manner in which the peasants retain 
these head coverings in their place, has been as pei^- 
plexmg to strangers, as how the apple got inside the 



OUR CONSUL. 19 

dumpling was to England's sovereign, but considering 
the population, it would not be uncharitable to con- 
clude that the tension is induced by the vacuum in the 
noddles they surmount, on the principle of the "- sucker" 
with which philosophic juveniles raise a brick. The 
continued '' Boo-ah" resounding in the streets, as the 
driver of the sleds with casks upon them spurs up the 
two poor little oxen, whom a small boy leads with a 
string from the horn, soon convinces you that you are 
in the land of the elevating " Tinta," and generous 
" Serchal." Should the sled drag heavily over the 
stones, the small boy throws down in front of it a 
wetted cloth, passing over which, the runner is lubri- 
cated. 

On reaching the residence of the American consul, 
we dismounted and partook of a lunch, which his hos- 
pitality invariably provides for his visiting country- 
men. It is unnecessary to tell with what gusto, men 
who eighteen days before were gathered around a 
stove in their own land, were now in the genial air of 
Madeira, windows open, and perfume coming in all 
around from beautiful plants, partook of the rich treat 
of guavas, the small banana, and the Mandarin orange 
just plucked from the tree that thrust itself in the 
casement. The snack over, we ascended to the con- 
sul's observatory ; a fine glass, mounted on a tripod, 
swept the offing and anchorage, giving every object 
much nearness. Our old ship lying stately at her 
anchors, was just saluting with twenty-one guns the 



20 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Portuguese flag floating at her fore, which was promptly 
returned by the fort on Loo Rock. Around and be- 
low us were patches of green-vine and trellis, amid 
an expanse of red tile roofs, on many of which were 
placed wine-casks that they might sweeten in the sun. 
We then descended to the wine-houses, where butt 
after butt of large dimensions, reached by foot ladders, 
of Tinta and Serchal, and "Navy," told how the de- 
lightful grape of the island had swelled into fullness, 
and then been crushed into wine. Ah ! Clarence, thou 
shouldst have lived till now. 

We mounted and started for le Petite Coral, by the 
way of the church Nossa SenJiora do Monte, The an- 
gle of ascent of the road is over twenty degrees, but the 
style of going up is usually to give your horse his head 
and his rider's heel, and if like Putnam's he dashes 
up, racketing it over the stones, and sending back 
fire from his heels, why it's the way. Being bantered 
for a dash up by one of my messmates, and my friend 
the Borro Querro in the rear not being a party thereto, 
I regret to remark, that the last I saw of that re- 
spected individual after the start, he was engaged in 
performing some very sudden gyrations proximate to 
the roadside hedge. However, a glass of the country 
wine, on his joining me at the blowing place, about 
half-way up, enabled me to make my entire peace 
with him for the suddenness of my leaving. The way 
up was lined with vines and dogs, peasant girls and 
chapels, mendicaijts and donkeys, which would knock 



VIEW FROM THE MOUNT. 21 

Mr. Laurence Sterne's sentimental blubber all in the 
head. The clatter of the approaching hoofs caused 
the dark browed senoritas to " come unto the window/' 
but the horses appeared to hurry on the faster for 
their presence. The descent of this mountain is gene- 
rally made at a rapid pace, on a rude sled, two boys 
riding behind and giving it proper direction. The 
mode of movement about the streets, is, if a foreigner 
and invalid, in a hammock suspended from a pole, 
and borne on the shoulders of two men, steadying 
themselves as they walk with quarter-staffs ; if a na- 
tive gentleman in a canopied sled drawn by unsightly 
oxen, which quick mode of movement will convey a 
very good idea of the enterprise of the people who 
employ it. 

But we were on the way to the Church of the Lady 
of the Mount. It was not very long before we dis- 
mounted at the foot of the long flight of discolored 
stone steps that led to its front. On reaching the 
terrace we looked down on the view below us. The 
town had dwindled into a white-washed amphitheatre ; 
the ships were not quite as much changed as the ob- 
jects to the sight of Edgar from the cliffs of Dover, 
but appeared greatly reduced in proportion. I could 
scarcely believe that the Mississippi, riding at her 
anchors in the bay, was the floating home of over three 
hundred human beings ! 

On entering the church, we were met at the door 
by a pussy snuff-taking priest, whose besmeared outer 



22 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

garment looked as if it would have been all the bet- 
ter for the application of a cake of brown soap in 
connection with some of the clear water which 
coursed down the mountain past his sanctuary. The 
interior of the edifice displayed the most garish 
taste, and with its sickening amount of gilding, was 
embellished in the most tawdry manner. There was 
the customary proportion of relics, and the paintings 
around looked very old. Our stay was short, and 
after leaving a small sum for our footing, as Jack 
would say, we returned to our steeds, leaving the 
wax figure of the lady patroness of the island in a 
glass case in the rear, looking as demure and as in- 
different to our presence as when we entered. The 
whilom legends of the devout tell of her, at a time 
when breadstuffs were scarce, having left her crystal 
enclosure and gone to hurry on cargoes of grain to 
Funchal, which, like Buckingham, were ''on the sea." 
The descent to the Coral — a deep mountain gorge 
of singular and circular formation — is by a narrow 
shelf of a road cut in the face of a precipitous hill, 
and running in inclined planes. One does not en- 
tirely fancy the task of going down ; but then the 
horses are rough-shod, with reference to such places, 
are remarkably sure footed, and move instinctively 
with much caution. On getting to the bottom, the 
road by which we had just come looked like a mere 
thread-line on the face of the cliff that hung over us. 
Its depth is some sixteen hundred feet, and you look 



THE PETITE CORAL. 23 

up to the azure above you as from an immense pit. 
We stopped at a small mill situated at the lowest 
point of the Coral, to give our horses a little time to 
blow, and our borro querros a little country wine, 
which was likewise patronized by ourselves. I no- 
ticed around clumps of pines planted for fuel, and a 
number of exquisite flowers growing spontaneously. 
We ascended from the Coral by a road equally as 
narrow and precipitous as the one by which we had 
gone down, only proving less clear; a large rock 
which had caved from the bank nearly barricaded 
the path, and on reaching it my horse, whose reputa- 
tion I subsequently ascertained to be one for shying, 
came quite near treating himself and rider to a Tar- 
pean fate. On reachmg the top, we were refreshed 
by a breeze redolent with perfume, and turned into a 
road enclosed on either side by hedges of bonafide 
geranium. It is feeding on this sweet plant that im- 
parts to the meat of the native cattle, when eaten, a 
peculiar flavor ; and the honey of the bee who gath- 
ers his sweets from it, is strongly impregnated with 
its pleasant odor. No wonder that the attenuated 
invalid should resort to thee, beautiful Madeira, to re- 
vive his drooping spirits. We returned to the city 
in the evening, by a road running past pleasant gar- 
dens, and by a bridge that spans the canal which re- 
ceives the quickly-swollen mountain streams, and put 
ourselves in charge of mine host of Guilletti's. 

The next day I landed near the governmental 



24 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

house, where was staying as a guest the mvalided 
empress mother of Brazil, who had, with a broken 
constitution, gone to Madeira, since to die. I visited 
the charitable hospital of the place, which fronts on 
the grand plaza. No sight can be more loathsome than 
the one to be seen in the wards of a Portuguese hos- 
pital, unless it be that of the dead mendicants that 
you pass in the streets of some of the cities of China. 
The most terrible ailments that flesh is heir to, and the 
greatest suffering that "age, ache, and penury, can 
lay on nature,'' were present all around. And then 
there were others in whom the flame of life, after 
flickering lowly, had just gone out. I was very wil- 
ling to get away from the apartment, and after de- 
scending to a dimly-lighted chapel below, where a 
solitary priest was engaged in prayer for the repose 
of the dead and dying above, and glancing at its 
characteristic decorations, I left the building. The 
edifice itself is quite an extended one, though it has 
no architectural beauty to attract attention. Over 
its main entrance, cut elaborately in a massive block 
of stone, are the royal arms of Portugal. 

My next place of visit was to the local prison, 
through which I was accompanied by a sergeant. 
The inmates, who were composed of both sexes, con- 
fined for offences of smuggling a bar of soap, up to 
those of a graver character, are allowed to indulge in 
any handiwork for which they are competent, and the 
product of their hands, tied on the ends of poles, is 



A PORTUGUESE BEGGAR. 25 

thrust through their prison-windows into the street, 
of which they solicit the purchase by the passer-by. 
But not even in the prisons are you exempt from the 
''por sua suade^^ — the interminable solicitation for 
alms ; and the distance which the prisoner may be 
from you is no barrier, as he is provided with a small 
car which, with a pole, he can push to his outer gra- 
ting, and as quickly withdraw. I can mention a cir- 
cumstance to show with what little sense of degrada- 
tion or hesitancy this thing of alms-asking is indulged 
in by a dago population. I was sitting in front of the 
consul's, conversing with some friends, when quite a 
genteel and tidily-dressed person, rejoicing in a much 
better pair of patent-leathers than I could muster, 
approached us and solicited alms, and was quite per- 
tinacious in his request. I had heard of the Spanish 
beggars on horseback, who solicited aid of pedestrians 
on the ground that they had more need of assistance 
than other people because they had to support their 
beast as well as themselves, but I had never met with 
anything quite as deliberate until I encountered my 
patent-leather-shoe friend at Madeira. 

And now we have been at Funchal two days, and 
the third, on which we are to take our departure for 
St. Helena, has arrived. In taking leave of the 
pleasant isle of vine and bower, the writer regrets 
that he can not, for the benefit of those of a more 
sentimental mood than himself, follow the example 
of others, and say something about the Santa Clara 

2 



26 THE JAPAN EXPEDITIOISr. 

conventj that stands embosomed by deep foliage on 
the hill, and tell in touching tones about the fair and 
unhappy Donna Clementina, "who, besides being ad- 
mired because Heaven had vouchsafed to her a visage 
blonde, when those around were brunette, was also 
loved for other qualities, for which vide her devotees 
— how she "would be a nun," and how she "wouldn't 
be a nun ;" and how some [' young Lochinvar," who 
they say came " out of the west," once wished to do 
something both romantic and desperate, and rescue 
the fair lady from the holy precincts where, it was 
represented, she was most unwillingly detained ; but, 
with Mr. Aminadab Sleek, in the play, " we are really 
afraid we can't." 

Good-by, Madeira, whose tropical beauty was so 
fresh to me, and the picture of whose loveliness will 
be ever in mind. 

"Long, long be my heart with such memories filled," 



AGAIN AT SEA. 27 



CHAPTER 11. 

On the afternoon of the 16th of December, all hands 
being on board, with coal dust, and wine for distin- 
tinguished functionaries in the U. S. on our decks, 
an orange and banana smell over the ship, and six 
little Madeira bullocks, who, upon being hoisted in 
by the horns, no sooner reached the decks, than they 
indulged in a series of cavortings, to the no small 
amusement of the old shell-back denizens of the fore- 
castle, we lifted anchor, and steamed away from 
Funchal, to the south. At nightfall Madeira's lines 
of green, and basalt, and red soil, were lost to 
view. 

We were now entering on the longest run we an- 
ticipated making during the cruise. On the second 
morning out at an early hour we made Palma, one of 
the westernmost of the Canary islands. When the 
sun came up from behind it, defining its sharp peaks 
and irradiating the whole outline of the island, I had 
the happy consciousness that it fully compensated me 
for the rupture of my matinal slumbers, necessary to 
get a glimpse of it. The celebrated peak of Teneriffe 



28 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

was wrapped in cloud when we passed, and I did not 
see it ; though others with " optics sharp," at one 
time, said they discerned it in the extreme distance. 
We subsequently passed in siglit of the Cape de Verde 
islands. During the day we ran into what is termed 
the incipient northeast trades, and as our coal was 
not deemed sufficient for the run before us, the en- 
gines were stopped, twenty tons of water blown from 
the boilers, fires extinguished, sufficient number of the 
paddles removed from the wheels, which were lashed, 
the large smoke stack lowered on the hurricane deck, 
and the ship put under sail. Many of us thought if the 
Japanese could only get a sight of the funnel as it 
lay in its chocks like another huge " peace-maker" 
when we reached their country, they would prove 
quite accessible. The spars of the Mississippi being 
tall, she spread a great deal of canvass, but the wind 
continuing quite light we made but little progress for 
several days. A whale saluted us by tapping his 
head against our port guard. On the 18th we tacked 
ship, and on the 21st we got the trade-winds proper, 
and under studding-sails ran quite well. Life on 
the ocean, monotonous, nearly, at all times, was ren- 
dered more so to us, by the transition from a steamer 
to a sailing ship. To study on ship-board, or even 
to read with profit, as I had heard before, is next 
to impossible, unless it may be with an old sea-dog 
to whom for some forty years the " ocean has been a 
dwelling-place." Try it, and you will find your eyes 



LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 29 

wandering from the type, and your thoughts bolt- 
ing from the subject, like a refractory quarter-horse 
over a track railing. The weekly routine of the ship 
was comprised in going to quarters, morning and 
evening, for inspection ; and once a week the whole 
ship's company are beat to general quarters, when 
the magazines are open, the powder-boys busy in 
passing and repassing cartridge-boxes, the guns are 
cast loose and worked by their crews, boarders are 
called away, pikemen are posted to repel boarders, 
marines are stationed near them, &c. ; the master gives 
his orders for sail-trimmers to put stoppers on such 
portions of the rigging, as an active imagination sug- 
gests must have been shot away, and all the evolu- 
tions of an actual engagement at sea are gone through ; 
together with exercise at fire-quarters, when an alarm 
with the ship's bell is rung, at which sentinels are 
placed at the falls of each boat, so that in an actual 
emergency there could be none of the inhuman deser- 
tion and infamous flight which marked the sad catas- 
trophe of the " Arctic." All of these exercises, which 
increase the discipline of a crew and the eflSciency of 
a ship, are of course possessed of more interest to 
those officers who have military duties to perform on 
board, than others, who are too apt to experience the 
indilBference of the Emerald isle native, who being in- 
formed that the house was on fire, replied it was 
nothing to him, he " was only a boarder." 

The weather we experienced in the trades was very 



30 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

pleasant, though it became hot with much suddenness. 
Pretty white clouds trooped across the sky like pil- 
grims in white, bound to Mecca. The regular waves 
as they came chasing one another from the horizon, 
rolled the whitest caps, and the sea was of the bluest, 
particularly as the lashed arms of our wheels divided 
the water in their passage, and the wheel-houses keep- 
ing off the direct rays of the sun, made it exquisitely 
transparent. Though the dews at night were so 
heavy that the moisture would run like rain off the awn- 
ings, yet the shadows of the big sails that had gone 
to sleep from the steadiness of the wind, made 
deeper by the bright moonlight and the illuminated 
image of the engine of our Savior's agony — the 
" southern cross" — with its twinkling stars looking 
down from the sky, made one forget that the distance 
from the coast of Africa was not the greatest, and that 
the wearing of a thick coat at night, was a decided 
improvement on a thin one. Porpoises were almost 
in the daily practice of thrusting their swinish nozzles 
upon public attention, and innumerable graceful 
little flying-fish, disturbed by our passage through the 
water, or chased by the dolphin, flew continually 
across the waves a-head of us, like flocks of sparrows 
over briers. But then we had the smallpox on board, 
on the person of a Portuguese boy shipped at Punchal, 
and the possibility of contracting this loathsome dis- 
ease, or the possession of an arm rather sore from 
vaccination, did not make the run more pleasurable. 



CHRISTMAS AT SEA. 31 

The events of Christmas day were, that we were iii 
130 23' north latitude, and 23 ^ 48' west longitude ; 
a very pleasant repast v/as spread by the ward-room, 
where ^'home with all its endearments" was drunk in 
Serchal ; and a poor little bird very much resembling 
the partridge of our ovm country, was blown aboard. 
This little representative of Africa's feathery race fell 
0. victim to the taxidermist aboard. What he thought 
previous to his demise, of the day, I know not, but to 
me it was not Christmas ; and no mental effort could 
" bring back the features that joy used to wear" when 
the mistletoe was hung, and the back log placed ; nor 
could the defunct gobler, who lately bestrode our 
coop, sole tenant, now lying in very brown state on a 
festive table, even provoke the pleasant memories. 

The next day, promulgated by Commodore M. 0. 
Perry, and signed by the then hiatus secretary of 
the navy, Mr. Swallow-Barn Kennedy, was read on 
the quarter-deck. General Order, No. 1, which, it is 
said, had a precedent in the expedition of Lieut. 
Wilkes, but which was as bad as its pi*ecedent, and 
equally unjust, being based upon the ridiculous prem- 
ise that because a government may have claim upon 
your thews and sinews, or your mental aptitude in 
the line of your profession, that it likewise has prop- 
erty in the product of your brain, no matter in what 
other way, out of your calling, it may be exercised. 
This order was violated subsequently in China, in the 
grossest way, with the tacit consent of the commander- 



32 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

in-cliief who first issued it; as if the prominent, in 
rale, or law, under our government were any more 
exempt from its provisions, than that the humblest are 
not beneath its control. I say in the grossest way, 
because he permitted, if he did not personally super- 
vise, the preparation of an account of the movements 
of his squadron, for the colonial English newspapers 
at Hopg-Kong, in preference to our own ; papers too, 
whose columns at other times displayed the village 
squabbling, which marked the thunders of the '•' Eatans- 
will Gazette" in Pickwick, in response to the shafts 
of ^' The Independent." 
The following is the order : — 

I *' {7. S. Steam, Frigate, Mississippi^ 

''At Sea, B^emher 21st, 1852. 

" General Order, No. 1 

'' In promulgating the subjoined extract from the in- 
structions addressed to me by the honorable secretary 
of the navy, and bearing date 13th ult., I have to 
enjoin upon all officers and other persons attached to 
the vessels under my command, or in any other way 
connected with the squadron, a most rigid adherence 
to all the requirements of said order. 

" Whatever notes or drawings may be prepared by 
the officers or other persons before mentioned, whether 
by special order, or by their own volition, will be en- 
dorsed by the respective parties, and transmitted 
» through the captain of the fleet to the commander- 



> 



33 

in-chief, who will in due time lodge them at the navy 
department, from whence they may be reclaimed as it 
may suit the convenience of the government. . 

^' All arms, curiosities, and specimens of natural 
history, are also to become the property of the United 
States, unless voluntarily relinquished by the com- 
mander-in-chief. 

" M. C. Perry, 

" Commander of the U. 8. Naval Forces^ 
" Stationed in the East India, China, and Japan SeasJ^ / 

[Extract.] 

"A subject of great importance io the success of 
the expedition, will present itself to your mind in re- 
lation to communications to the prints and newspapers, 
touching the movements of your squadron, as well as 
in relation to all matters connected with the discipline 
and internal regulations of the vessels composing it. 
You will therefore enjoin upon all under your com- 
mand to abstain from writing to friends and others 
upon these subjects, the journals and private notes of 
the officers and other persons in the expedition must 
be considered as belonging to the government until 
permission be received from the navy department to 
publish them." 

The effect of this order was to cause ofi&cers to de- 
cline keeping journals, and only note down their pre- 
vious conceptions and present impressions of things 
and places seen, in their letters to relatives. 

In 8^ north of the equator we became becalmed, 
2^' 



34 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

when the paddles were put on and we steamed away 
about eight knots. Our drinking water about this time 
showed a degree of vitality which was not made more 
agreeable by the fact that the naval regulations did 
not allow the wearing of the mustache, even for 
straining purposes. 

About ten o'clock on the last night of '52 there was 
a cry from the poop-deck of '' man overboard !" when 
the engines were stopped, and the life-buoys suspended 
from either quarter of the ship were attempted to be 
gotten away, but not going quickly, nor their match- 
locks igniting from some cause, gratings were hove 
overboard, lights sent up in the mizzen-top, and a me- 
tallic boat, the 2d cutter, in which went Lieutenant 
Webb, and Passed Midshipman K. R. Breese, was 
lowered and went in search of the unfortunate man. 
There was much solicitude felt for the poor fellow by 
those who stood on the poop peering into the dark- 
ness astern, eager to hear the least sound that in- 
dicated the man still afloat, but it was scarcely shown 
by the scene enacted during the absence of the boat. 
Up came the commodore : " What's the bearing of 
that star ? — Where did that man fall from ?" Voice : 
— " Show the Commodore where the man fell from !" 
— man goes over to port side — ^"^ Take care of the 
paint !" " How does she head ?" After a lapse of 
fifteen or twenty minutes the boat was heard returning, 
when the following was the hail : — " Mr. Webb ?" — 
" Sir V'—" Have you got the buoy V'—" Yes, sir."— 



ST. HELENA. 85 

^^Have you got that man ?" Answer: ^'Yes^sir," 
which was one of much gratification, as every one re- 
garded him as gone. The boat it appeared, had passed 
him, and having given up the search, was returning, 
and would have pulled over him, but for his being 
discovered in time by a bow-oarsman. He was float- 
ing without effort on the surface, although there was 
considerable sea on at the time. The poor fellow 
upon being taken on board was found to have swal- 
lowed a great deal of water, and it was thought that 
he might die from congestion of the lungs. He had 
the antithetical name of Dry, and his mind being after- 
ward found affected, he was sent home in a merchant- 
ship from the Cape of Good Hope. 

We crossed the equator on the 3d of January, in 
longtitude 11° west, and when the " sun came up on 
the left" on the morning of the 10th, right ahead, 
perhaps in the very track of the Northumberland, 
looming sternly up from out the ocean, like the dark 
high walls of an ocean-prison that it is, we saw St. 
Helena, The tallest peak, that of Diana, is visible 
in the clouds for a great distance. At midday we 
anchored in the roadstead fronting James' town, and 
shortly after saluted the flag of England with twenty- 
one guns. At no time, during a cruise of two years 
and over, did I hear any reverberation from our heavy 
pieces, half so magnificent. The sound of each ex- 
plosion, at first seemed to recoil from the face of the 
immense rock which upreared itself in front, and then 



, 36 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION". 

as if gathering strength from the temporary rebuff, it 
broke, in and np the wedgeshaped valley in which 
James' town is situated, and appearing for a moment 
to die away, again went on over gorge and peak, 
tumbling, roaring, thundering in the distance, as if 
" Jura answered through her misty shroud." The 
salute was returned by one of the number of forts that 
were looming away above us on the island. 

In shore of us lay a number of s^arp rakish-look- 
ing little vessels, slavers, that had been captured by 
the English cruisers, on the African station, and 
brought to the island to be adjudged by a local court 
of admiralty ; better than our system where captor and 
prize have to return frequently, great distances to the 
United States. 

The landing at St. Helena is made on a mole at one 
end of the small beach that lies only immediately in 
front of James' town. A few minutes' walk, and cros- 
sing a drawbridge, over a moat, you pass through an 
embattled wall, from which some iron pieces frown 
down on you, by a lofty gate, at which sentinels are al- 
ways posted. On getting inside, a triangular street 
made of rolled gravel is before you. On the left are the 
guard quarters, the governor's house and offices, and a 
public garden ; on the right a church, hotel, and the as- 
cent to Ladder hill, where is situated the highest fort 
of the place, reached by six hundred and twenty-five 
steps. Hight before you, running from the apex of 
the triangle, is the road which leads to the spot 



ROAD TO LONGWOOD. 37 

which has made St. Helena famous, and England in- 
famous for ever. As you ascend this road, you may 
look down on the settlements of the Chinese who 
have left the flowery kingdom to dwell in this place 
of isolation and desolation ; also see the fine English 
soldier as he is being closely drilled from company 
to battalion, not by duke of Cambridge, or Earl Car- 
digan, all of whose bravery will not make up for want 
of tactical knowledge, but by sergeants. 

Our stay at the island was to be only until we 
could get coal enough aboard to take us to Cape- 
town, and so on the following morning I started for 
Longwood and the now vacant tomb ®f Napoleon. I 
was not aware when I started on foot, that I had to 
walk a distance before returning to the town, of nine 
miles, and that too over a road of lava formation, and 
under the burning rays of a vertical sun. The as- 
cent, at the first, is very great. Much fagged on reach- 
ing the summit point I sat down to rest, and sur- 
veyed the scene around. Near me on a road-stone, 
his bridleless and heavily-ladened little donkey crop- 
ping thistles not far oflF, in his particolored dress sat 
a Lascar quietly discussing his cigar. On the stone 
which he occupied, I read '' 1124 distance : 1180 
feet elevation.'^ The road in the direction in which 
I was going was shut in by clumps of brushwood and 
some scrubby pines, above which, far away — its ragged 
top currying away the bottoms of the southeast trade- 
clouds which, blowing continually over the island, 



38 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

ever and anon drop their genial drops on the arid 
earth beneath — rose Diana's peak hundreds of feet in 
air. But the view looking seaward : Sir Joshua 
Reynolds said that the horizon-line of the great and 
wide sea in mid-deep is one of the most striking em- 
blems of the infinite and the eternal to be found in 
all the works of the Almighty. This idea, of all other 
places, arises in the mind when gazing from the 
eminences of St. Helena ; but then, as you look upon 
'^ the sea here, the sea there, the sea all around," — 
contrasted with the vast expanse, how small in the 
imagination becomes the spot on which you stand, 
and how coffined before death, must have felt the 
great spirit, to whom all Europe was once a theatre^ 
— qui fait le tour du monde I 

From where I sat, I could see in the gorge be- 
neath, very plainly, the '' Briers," the home and hab- 
itation of Napoleon until Longwood could be gotten 
ready for his reception. It is situated behind a na- 
ked, stony hill, and must have been a warm abode, 
but Napoleon liked it for its quaintness and solitude ; 
preferring it to better houses in the town, where pri- 
vacy would have been impossible. The place is en- 
closed by low walls and rows of the prickly pear. 
On resuming my tramp, I passed some swarthy-fea- 
tured, black-haired, fine-formed young women, bare- 
footed, and lightly clad, carrying bundles of twigs on 
their heads, with which they walked, with apparently 
perfect indifference, notwithstanding the steepness of 



napoleon's tomb. 39 

road and the intense rays of the sun. I &oon reached 
and went by an old cottage in decay, a rusty signal- 
gun, a wayside inn with an embowered doorway, and 
then passing through a lane of trees, I entered upon 
a le?el road, which, in the space of three quarters of 
a mile, turned in crescent to the left. Some distance 
below, within this crescent, a lot of fir, cypress, and 
other trees, with grassy sod, terminated a small val- 
ley which commenced in desolation from the seaside. 
This spot was enclosed by a low, straggling fence, 
having a kind of sentry-box at its gate, and contains 
the vacant tomb of Napoleon. I descended to the 
place, paid the shilling entrance required of me, and 
entered the enclosure. The willow-tree which so in- 
variably figured in all drawings of the spot, is now 
gone. The grave is enclosed by a plain iron rail- 
ing, and, when I saw ifc, covered over with an awn- 
ing. Its present appearance is that of the strong 
foundation of an elongated old spring-house, lined 
with cement. It is eight feet deep, having at the bot- 
tom a small recess sunk below the general level, 
which received the coffin, and about five feet wide. 
Desirous of getting the exact measurement of so 
much greatness, one of our party stretched himself at 
full length in this lower deep, but its chilliness soon 
made him have as little desire to continue there, as 
the old hero of New Orleans had to repose after 
death in the sarcophagus of one of the Caesars, which 
the very considerate kindness of a commodore had 



40 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

brought for him. The whole surface of the plaster- 
ing down in the tomb is covered with scarcely-legible 
names, or petty ambition's trashy verses. The same 
very limited aspiration is to be seen in the pages of a 
register kept at the place, where the national animos- 
ities of visiting-strangers play shuttlecock and bat- 
tledore. The obstinate and collected Englishman 
repeats the commonplace of Sir Walter Scott, in 
wishing you to behold the spot which held him for 
whom the earth was once too small,, or ethically 
informs you, that one life being taken constitutes 
murder, but that of thousands makes a hero ; then 
comes the mercurial Frenchman, who, after relieving 
himself by a great big '^sacre^^ on the English nation 
generally and the island jailer in particular, says Na- 
poleon is avenged, for Hudson Lowe ^' est mortf^ or 
breaks out with "-J^ai vu: J^ai mauditP^ Next 
comes that peripatetic philosopher, Jonathan, who, 
smacking as usual of the shop, furnishes the edifying 
information that he belongs to the " Mary Brown, of 
New Bedford, has bin out over two years, and hain't 
got but four hundred barrils of oil ; hopes to be to 
'hum' soon ; and stopping at the island, has just 
come out to see Boney's tomb !" 

When the tomb contained the body of the great 
emperor, it was filled to within one foot of the sur- 
face, with earth, and covered in mound form with 
cement. The three slabs that closed the grave, were 
taken from the kitchen hearth of the Longwood jail. 



A BLACK CICERONE. 41 

A cicerone^ in the person of a gray-haired old negro 
woman, who saw both the interment and the exhuma- 
tion of the remains of Napoleon, tells you in an Ethi- 
opic vernacular, of the incidents of the spot; after 
enumerating the number of coffins in which the body 
was placed, she said, " Dare, sir, laid his head, and 
here was his feet.'' — "He always used to drink at 
dat dare spring, dare." — "I's seen him many a time 
come down dat hill dare wid his snuff-box and one 
of General Bertram's children." — "When he used to 
stop still, he'd do jest so"- — folding her arms. She 
was also quite minute in her mention of the " Prince 
de Jonnyville" in the " Belpooly." 

The spot was pointed out to me where Bertrand, 
Gourgaud, Las Casas, and Marchand, erected the tent 
to put the body under after exhumation, which took 
place amid wind and rain. All around the tomb was 
wet and miry ; in times of heavy rains, now, the tomb 
is not unfrequently filled with water. The work of 
disinterment was begun after midnight, and by seven 
o'clock in the morning the stones that closed the 
lower vault were raised. The anvil employed by the 
men engaged upon the work to keep their tools in 
order, sank at every blow, and the men were ankle 
deep in mud. I have nothing pathetic or philosophic 
to add, upon the spot ; 

*' Si ta tombe est vide Napoleon ? 
Ton nom ne remplit il pas Tuniverse." 

Ascending the hill on the other side, by a winding 



42 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

path which led up through a pretty garden, I stopped 
at the little residence of '' Hutt's gate," formerly oc- 
cupied by General Bertrand, with his family, previ- 
ous to moving out to the building in the vicinity of 
Longwood. After resting here, I footed it a mile 
further, to the outer entrance to the grounds of Long- 
wood. The prospect before me during this walk was 
of the drearies!; and most desolate kind, presenting 
the most marked contrast to the verdure at the tomb. 
It was along this road that Napoleon walked to his 
favorite spring, and over which his Chinese coolies 
carried his water from it. After passing a dilapida- 
ted wall and gate, you enter upon a lawn of some 
hundred yards, on one side of which are straggling 
fir-trees, bent down in the same direction by the con- 
tinual pressure of the southeast trade-winds, which 
are felt at this part of the island very strongly, and 
the other side was hedged by a long row of the 
stately aloe. In a few minutes you are in front of a 
dilapidated low building, with a small verandah in 
front of one of its wings, and partly enclosed in an 
old stone wall. This is Longwood as it now is. When 
I reached it, the place looked abandoned in the ex- 
treme, with the exception of the cows and a scrawny 
donkey that browsed around, or a solitary turkey who 
broke the silence with his gobble. There was the de- 
cayed and silent guard-house and signal-tower, its 
halyards rotted away and pole tottering, from which 
the restless bunting was for ever telling by day to the 



LONGWOOD. 43 

sedulous jailer at " Plantation House" how his great 
prisoner at Longwood, after the mental exhaustion 
of dictation, or the fatigues of a morning walk, now 
slept, or that, having slept, he was now feeding his 
pet fishes in the little pond in the rear of his cell 
abode. This quiet was soon broken ; a dirty-faced, 
uncombed-haired English girl approached, and in- 
formed us that the fee for admission to the house was 
two shillings — Longwood, like the grounds around 
the tomb, being leased by the government to others, 
for the purpose of speculating on the interest of asso- 
ciation connected with the great emperor. If we are 
the " dollar people," can any man who has ever vis- 
ited English domain say, that they are not entitled to 
the name of " shilling nation !" 

The first room you enter on going into the house, is 
the one in which, amid storm and rain, and when 

"Far along, 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
Leapt the live thunder," 

its booming reaching the now drowsy ear which was 
once attuned to the roar of cannon on a hundred 
fields, with the ejaculation of " tete d^armee^^ on his 
nearly motionless lips, died Napoleon. The head of 
his bed rested against the sill of a window, from un- 
derneath which the French have removed the stone, 
and placed it in the Hospital des Invalides as a pre- 
cious relic. Through the sashless opening, the sun 
now streams in on the floor of a room occupied by 



44 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

a thrasliiiig-macliiiie, and with a manger overliead ; 
while the room in which he mostly slept, and ate, and 
read, is now paved with cobble-stones, and filled with 
horse-stalls. The fish-pond is dry, and the grave of 
his favorite horse you can not find. 

Just across the road I visited the new house of 
Longwood, its walls sound, its porticoes and floors in 
a perfect state of preservation, and its spacious rooms 
unoccupied. Napoleon visited it once, but feeling 
that one jail was no less one for being better built 
than another, spurned this ofi'er of the English to 
conciliate him in his cage, as the lion spurns the 
leavings of the jackal though he die in his den. 

On my way back to James' town, I passed in sight 
of the grounds and former mansion of 

" The paltry jailer and the prying spy" — 

" Plantation house" — but had no desire to visit it. 

At James' town there is a very fine bust of Napo- 
leon, said to have been made from a plaster cast of 
the face, taken after death ; the nose is much more 
exquisitely chiselled and beautiful than any other 
representation to be seen of his face. 

Before nightfall on the 11th of January, we were un- 
der way for the Cape of Good Hope from St. Helena. 

" The fleets that sweep before the eastern blast, 
Shall hear their sea-boys hail it from the mast ; 
When Victory's Gallic column shall but rise, 
Like Pompey's pillar, in a desert's skies. 
The rocky isle, that holds, or held his dust, 
Shall crown the Atlantic like the hero's bust." 



CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 45 



CHAPTER III. 

We reached Cape Town after a run of thirteen 
days. On the morning of the 24th of January we 
made the long, low sand-hills in the vicinity of Sal- 
danha bay. South Africa, and continuing our run in 
sight of the coast during the day, anchored after 
nightfall, with bright moonlight around, in Table 
bay. We encountered the whole way a strong head 
wind and sea, and at one time doubted whether our 
coal would be sufficient to enable us to reach our 
port. The men were exercised at target practice, 
with pistol and musket. On the 15th, the sun being 
vertical^ the friendly wish " May your shadow never 
be less," would have been superfluous, as on that day 
the thing was impossible. As we neared the guano 
islands, lying off the harbor, we were surrounded by 
booby-birds and sea-gulls innumerable ; the " alba- 
tross" also '^ did cross," and very large birds they were. 

Cape Town, from the water, looks like a long, low, 
yellow fortification. Its population is about thirty 
thousand, made up of the representatives of nearly 
every nation. It was captured from the Dutch by 



46 THE JAPAN EXPEDTTIOISr. 

tlie English in 1806. Being the groat stopping-place 
for vessels bound round the Cape of Good Hope, or 
returning from Australia and the East Indies, the oc- 
cupations of the inhabitants are mostly mercantile. 
The streets are wide and well laid out. They have 
a number of fine churches, a botanical garden, and 
quite an extensive library. High beliind the town, 
flanked on either side by the conical hills of the 
" Lion's Rump" and " Devil's hill," rises that re- 
markable formation, which is visible a great distance 
from the sea, called Table Mountain^ four thousand 
feet high, and level on the top. The weather is 
nearly always unsettled, but a blow may be expected 
when the inliabitants remind you that the " cloth is 
spread" on Table mountain, which is suddenly cov- 
ered with a thick white cloud, which curls over the 
steep face of the mountain, and extends itself down 
it, as a deep snow from the roof of a house when the 
melting begins. When this continues, the ships in 
the harbor, which is a very unsafe one, look to their 
moorings, and are frequently driven ashore. The 
day after our arrival we were compelled to change 
our berth : the old Mississippi reared and plunged at 
her anchors like an impatient steed endeavoring to 
slip his rein, and at night the royal mail steamer 
Bosphorus broke from her moorings and went ashore. 
We were unable to go to her assistance because the 
weather had prevented our getting any coal aboard. 
As your boat approaches the mole, you pass through 



:^ ^ 




el 






CAPE TOWN. 47 

large flocks of the black gull and cormorant, and 
nearer the shore, groups of tlie pelican are feeding. 
Should a southeast wind prevail when you reach the 
wharf, you will scarcely be able to see the place. 
Dense clouds, not of dust, but of coarse red sand, fill 
the streets, and are borne in fitful eddies around the 
corners. It fills your eyes, if you are so rash as to open 
them but for a second, your ears, nostrils, and insin- 
uates itself underneath every garment that you wear; 
you are doing the penance of walking with gravel 
under your sock, although sandal-shoon be on. The 
male residents who move about wear veils attached 
to their hats, but to a stranger the annoyance is hor- 
rible. During the prevalence of this wind, the houses 
are closed as well as they may be, but it is insuffi- 
cient to keep out the plague. In the parlor-windows 
of an English hotel at which I dined, the dust had 
accumulated in a morning to the thickness of velvet, 
and from the front of the house I saw a Hottentot 
servant removing the sand piled on the pavement, as 
we would a small snow-drift in our own country. 

But when you can open your eyes, strange-looking 
people and strange things meet them. At the hotel, 
you were waited upon by Bengalese servants, with 
their fantastically-wound turbans of cashmere nearly 
the size of a market-basket, their blue gowns reach- 
ing to the knee, tied with red riband in front, making 
their waist appear just under their arms, and moving 
so stealthily with their bare feet, as they came and 



48 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

went, that you were not conscious of their presence. 
In the streets you see the high-cheeked-bone Malay, 
the emaciated-looking cooiey, and tlie red-capped, 
half-naked, simial-faced Hottentot, whom the mista- 
ken philanthrojDy of English law has removed from 
the authority of the Dutch boor, that they may go 
lower in the scale of humanity. By you wheels 
some lately-arrived cockney in one of the patent 
safety cabs from London, the driver perched behind, 
and slowly following comes a lumbering wagon, its 
tents covering some large casks, it may be, drawn 
by sixteen or eighteen yoke of the enormous horned 
oxen of this colony, who are ever reminded of the 
proximity of their Hottentot driver, by his unceas- 
ing guttural calls and the continual application of 
his immense whip, whose lash, after being whirled in 
air an instant, he can cause to descend with unfail- 
ing accuracy on the back of any particular ox in 
his team, though he be a leader. In the windows of 
the stores you notice the graceful feathers of the os- 
trich, and its eggs ; elephants' tusks, and those too 
of the wild boar left in the skull ; and the skins of 
the leopard and lion, remind you that you are where 
^'Afric's sunny,'' &c. Innumerable jargons salute 
your ear as you move about. 

On a bright Saturday morning, a Malay, with a 
good coach and four very good horses, drove a party 
of us out to Constantia, famous for tlie making of 
the celebrated wine of that name. The distance from 



CONSTANTIA, 49 

town i* about nine miles, and the road a very good 
one. You pass through long rows of the pine-tree, 
which I saw planted for ornamental effect for the 
first time^ and here and there you see the native 
silver-tree, its bright leaves glistening prettily in the 
sun. The residences on the route are very cosy-look- 
ing, and much taste is displayed in laying off the ap- 
proaches to them. A house not long before occupied 
by Sir Harry Smith, while governor of the colony, 
was a very attractive place. 

The proprietors of the wine-producing establish- 
ments are very polite in their receptions and show 
you over their places with pleasure. We visited 
their brightly white-washed and steep4hatched roofed 
wine-houses, in whose extended walls were seen the 
huge wine butts like those of Madeira, but filled with 
the thicker-bodied and sweeter Pontac and Fronte- 
nac. The wine-house of Mr. Cloete has on its front 
quite a well-executed bacchanalian scene in basso- 
relievo^ 2ind was erected in 1793. The roofs of their 
houses are steep and smoothly thatched, which cover- 
ing is said to last for forty years, without the ac- 
cident of fire, of which they are very careful. The 
decorations of their grounds are tasty, and the sire, 
bending outward the limbs of the oak when young, 
leaves a canopied place for table and chairs in the 
centre of its branches, for the son. 

The mode of cultivating the grape for the produc- 
tion of wine at Constantia is peculiar. They use no 

3 



60 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

arbor for the support of the vines, but sustafa them, 
a small distance from the ground, with sticks. "When 
the fruit has reached maturity, the leaves are cut 
away to permit its being reached by the rays of the 
sun, and is only plucked for pressing when it has be- 
come nearly as sweet as a raisin ; hence the taste of 
the wine, its high value, and its body. 

During our stay at Cape Town, the Kaffir war still 
continued, and on our way back from Constantia, we 
drove to the little settlement of Wynberg to take a 
look at the captive Kaffir chief Seyolo, whom the 
English had confined in the prison at that place. 
"We found the prisoner in a small cell, a stalwart 
woolly-headed negro, not of the darkest complexion, 
standing six feet one and three quarters inches high. 
His dress consisted of a lit cigar, and a single blan- 
ket thrown round his person. His wife, Niomese, 
with a good countenance and very small hands and 
feet, was with him. In an adjoining cell was his chief 
counsellor and his wife. They appeared quite cheer- 
ful and decidedly lazy. When the unintelligent face 
and elongated heel of Seyolo, was considered, it was 
a matter of surprise, how such a creature could have 
exercised with any force the power of command, or 
displayed any strategic skill to the annoyance of the 
English ; but it was said that he had not been any- 
tliing like as troublesome to the colonists as a wither- 
ed-legged Kaffir chief named Sandilli, who having 
been once taken and turned out on his parole, would 



KAFFIR WAR. 61 

be shot in obedience to the sentence of a drum-head 
courtinartial, if again captured. The accounts from 
the seat of hostilities, during the time we lay at Cape 
Town were very unpropitious, owing to the severe 
fatigue and exhaustion which the hale hearty soldiers 
in their illy-adapted uniform, were compelled to un- 
dergo in bush-fighting or climbing steep places in 
pursuit of the alert and fleet-footed KafiSr, while 
with the best protection that could be extended to the 
kraals of the settlers, their cattle were continually 
being driven off by the thieving enemy. 

A stroll through the botanical garden remunerates 
one very well. The exotics are rare and tastefully dis- 
played, while the Fuchias and the Cape Jasmin laden 
the air with sweet perfume. The wheat of the colony is 
ground in steam-mills situated in the midst of the city. 

Having had the good fortune to have such weather 
as we could coal ship in, and also employed carpenters 
to build frames for the protection of our fire-room 
hatches, against the water which might extinguish 
our fires, should we have the misfortune to undergo 
one of the severe gales that are so frequently met 
with in the ocean which we had to traverse before 
reaching our next port, we sent our letter-bag to 
a merchant-ship bound to Boston, raised anchor on 
the 3d of February, and steamed away out, passing 
the Lion's Rump, False Bay, and Cape Hanglip, bound 
to the Isle of France, or as now called, the Mauri- 
tius. On getting a short distance from the place we 



52 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

encountered a mountainous, foamless swell, which did 
not break, but rolled up to a very great height with 
regularity. Our ship was sluggish in the extreme, 
and when we slid slowly down into the trough of the 
sea, the wave before and behind us was apparently 
as high as our mizzen top. The colors of a ship 
hoisted at her mizzen peak, but only a short way off, 
at times, were entirely shut in from our view by the 
swell. If this sea had only broken it would have 
proved the propriety of the old Dutch name for the 
cape — "the Stormy cape." In rounding the cape 
the fate of the unfortunate " Birkenhead," an Eng- 
lish transport steamer, lost off it some years ago by 
running on a sunken rock, came to mind ; and we 
also thought of the collected bravery of the large 
number of troops on board of her. It is one thing 
to face death from the belching mouth of cannon or 
the deadly rifle, for then a man is hurried on by the 
clangor and excitement of the strife, and moves 
under the illusory belief that makes more than half 
the soldiers of the world, that somebody else may be 
killed, but that he will not. But what is to be said 
in praise of the placid courage of the poor soldiers 
on the Birkenhead, who, with death inevitable, not 
amid " the sulphurous canopy," but death from the 
yawning wave facing tliem^ yet fell into rank at the 
roll of drum, as if on a dress-parade, and sank into 
the yesty deep with the engulfed vessel, patterns of 
discipline and martyrs to duty. 



CATTLE AT SEA. 63 

We ran to the eastward for some days for the pur- 
pose of getting a favorable wind and then headed 
northward for our port. The weather continued 
rough and disagreeable. The anti-scorbutic notions 
of the commander-in-chief — although we were not a 
sailing vessel liable to be out of port for any con- 
siderable length of time, but a steamer whose neces- 
sity for coal would require short runs, caused to be 
put on board of us before leaving Cape Town, twelve 
of the large, wide horned cape-bullocks, and a num- 
ber of the cape-sheep with tails as wide as a dinner 
plate. The stalls of the larger cattle were on the 
forecastle and on the quarter-deck, tied up to the 
halyard racks. When the ship rolled heavily, the 
noise of these poor animals endeavoring to conform 
to her movement, or disturbed by the men in getting 
at the ropes which their large horns covered, and 
their continued tramping over the heads of those 
below deck, was of course increasing the comfort of 
ship-board hugely. Then during a rough night al- 
though cleats had been nailed on the deck to steady 
them, some steer would tumble down and dislocate 
his thigh, requiring the butcher's axe to despatch him 
next morning. On the port side of the " quarter- 
deck," y'clepted, I believe, in the time of Drake, the 
" king's walk," the impromptu bleating of the sheep 
from a fold made by lashing oars from the breach of 
one gun to another, was quite mellifluous. 

If the necessity had arisen of fighting the ship^ 



64 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

overboard would have to go the beef-cattle : if the 
ship had been required to salute a superior com- 
mand met on the sea, the orders would have been 
given, perhaps, as follows : " Starboard (look out for 
the bull) fire!" ^^ Port (you'll get kicked) fire!" 
" Starboard (don't hurt those sheep) fire!" &c. The 
efficiency of the ship for war purposes was seriously 
impaired, if not destroyed, during their presence. 

Two days from port, the anti-scurvy idea still pre- 
dominant, punch made with ship's whiskey and lime 
juice, was served out to the crew, but many an old 
shell-back as he took his tot, looked as if he would 
have preferred the ardent minus the other ingredients. 

On the 14th of February we discovered a tant 
vessel to the windward of us. It proved to be a 
steamer under sail alone, her engines out of gear and 
dragging her wheels. She stood down in our direc- 
tion as if desirous of speaking us, and many expres- 
sed much surprise at our not stopping, but all at 
once we had stopped, and the stranger shot across 
our stern. In answer to the hail, " What ship is 
that ?" the reply was : " Her majesty's steamer 
Styx, bound to the Mauritius ; please report us under 
sail." Our stopping was involuntary, a screw of one 
of the " cut-offs" to our engines having come out, 
which was promptly fixed with a block of wood by 
one of the admirable engineers which it was the good 
fortune of the Mississippi to have ; so that we were 
ready to go ahead again in a very few minutes. The 



THE INDIAN OCEAN. 55 

Englishman, no doubt, was none the wiser for the 
belief that we stopped in courtesy to him. 

The weather just before reaching Mauritius was 
much smoother than it had been ; the sun now came 
up upon the right, and his going down in the Indian 
ocean at night, was a sight most beautiful to look 
upon, its whole bosom bathed in fiery floods, and way 
above, tower above tower, rose in radiance and glory 
illuminated clouds. When our band's best strains 
were filling the ship at evening and these sights pre- 
ceded night, we could hardly realize that we were in 
the Indian ocean — the ocean of squalls, calms, heavy 
rains, gale, storm, and hurricane. 



56 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION'. 



CHAPTER IV. 

About 11 o'clock on our fifteenth morning out from 
the Cape of Good Hope, the southwestern end of the 
island of Mauritius was visible from the masthead, 
and we put on all our furnaces so as to reach Port 
Louis before night. On approaching the land we ran 
for two hours past highly-tilled fields encompassing 
the cosy houses of the planters, sloping to the water's 
edge in living green. As we neared the small cres- 
cent on which is built the little town of Port Louis, 
we were boarded by two English harbor-masters, who 
conducted us to our anchorage, and assisted in moor- 
ing the ship head and stern, as the place is too con- 
tracted for a vessel of any size to swing in. Their 
costume showed the philosophy which John Bull always 
carries into torrid temperatures. They were dressed 
in white linen roundabouts, pants and shoes, and on 
their heads were w^ide-brimmed hats, made of the 
pith of a tree and covered with white. We had gotten 
the ship secured just about the time a gun from one 
of the forts nigh us, announced the liour to be 8 o'clock. 
I sat upon the wheel-house looking at the necklace of 



MAURITIUS. 67 

lights that marked the town ; the moon as if moved 
by the notes of our band which was playing delight- 
fully " Katy Darling,'' and the " Old Folks at Home," 
seemed to rise more rapidly, and as it came it dis- 
played the lofty outline of Peter Botte mountain, 
of Penny Magazine memory ; the tall palms that 
fringed the beach on the right looked more stately 
and graceful in the silver light, and the scene alto- 
gether was so enchanting, that no one who looked 
upon it, could keep from feeling Bernardin-St.- 
Pierreish. 

At daylight next morning we got a look at Port 
Louis. The town is not extensive, tliough nestling 
prettily under tall volcanic hills. Its suburbs are 
composed of the red-roofed huts of liberated Africans, 
making long streets. In its bazar, like nearly all 
places in that portion of the globe, your attention is 
first arrested by the grotesque — the kaleidoscope of 
costume. Of course your ubiquitous pig-tail friend 
" John Chinaman" is present. Here he attires him- 
self in dark nankeen clothes, wears his clumsy shoe 
without sock, twists his plaited queue under a Manilla 
hat, and with his Paul Pry umbrella which he seldom 
hoists, looks as much like another " John Chinaman" 
who passes him, as two bricks in a house. You see 
the Arab with his head entirely shorn, or the dark- 
haired Lascar most diminutive in loin wardrobe, but 
gaudy in the vest that covers his fine-formed chest ; 
the Parsee clothed in his gown of white muslin, his 



68 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

turban and pointed shoes ; tlie Malayan women in 
very brief attire, their children strapped on their 
backs, sitting on the way-side, chewing the areca-nut 
or the betel-leaf that they may spit blood-red saliva, 
and none the better looking for having a large ring 
fastened through the skin of their foreheads, or hang- 
ing from one nostril. These people are all very 
graceful in their movements. Their religions are 
comprised in Mohammedanism, Buddism, Hindoo, &c. 
They number some six thousand of the population 
of the place. 

I had a pleasant drive into the country, over fine 
English ^oads. Macadamized with volcanic stone by 
chain gangs. Our fancy-turbaned Lascar driver kept 
up the while a noise like that of our swamp-sparrows, 
to encourage his horses. We saw the large fields of 
sugar-cane, rustling in their deep green, with here 
and there the tall white chimneys of a sugar-house, 
or the painted roofs of the chateaus of the Creole, 
who live very luxuriously, rising in the midst of the 
promising crops, whose aggregate yield it was thought 
would be one hundred and sixty millions of pounds of 
sugar. The foliage that encroaches on the road-side 
with its luxuriance, or stretches way back to the base 
of the steep volcanic hills in sight, says ''Tropical, 
tropical ;" " the acacia waves her yellow hair," you 
have the wide-spreading banyan, the tall rough bark- 
ed cocoa, the cabbage-tree — its branches interlocked, 
the banana, the plantain, the ever-graceful palm, — 



PAMPLEMOUSES. 59 

each one of its leaves large enough to make a fan ; 
and then too the traveller's tree, which on being 
tapped, affords the weary and athirst a substitute for 
w^ater. Underneath this mass of rank green, you 
notice the straight-stemmed aloe with its graceful 
.top-knot, and in the hedges that porcupine plant, the 
cactus, whose prickly leaf and long thorn, prevent 
the hump-backed, or Hindoo cattle of the country 
from getting in the fields of green cane. Then 
the birds are beautiful to see : the pure white boat- 
swain, the noisy little paroquet, the black frigate bird, 
and the pretty little cardinal with his feather cowl. 

The morning scene along the roads is at all times 
animated. Witli his proverbial industry, in rope- 
harness, one John Chinaman is pulling and another 
John Chinaman is pushing, heavy burdens in a small 
wagon ; or, footing it in a trot to the town, with 
his bamboo-baskets strapped on shoulder, goes the 
chicken-merchant with his juvenile Shanghaes. Walk- 
ing past you in groups, their hands clasped one with 
another, or stretched on their back, the rays of the 
sun kept off by the shady branches of the palm, or 
sitting under a roof made of its leaves, having his 
head shaved, or the hairs of his moustache plucked 
out here and there, to make the outline more grace- 
ful, is the semi-denuded and meat-hating Lascar. 

This is a very small picture. 

I visited the village of '^ Pamplemouses^^^ where is 
Bituated the church-— as the delightful story, hath it 



60 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

— in which worshipped the mother of Paul and the 
mother of Virginia. Not far from this building, in 
the grounds of a resident, placed on either side of an 
artifical lake containing red and gold fish, are two 
square cemented pedestals, surmounted by rude urns, 
entirely overgrown with the pretty '' Pride of Barba- 
does." These are the tombs of Paul and Virginia — 
so said the good old lady who accompanied us to the 
sentimental spot, and called our attention to the fact 
that they were drowned, when these cocoa, palm, and 
camphor trees around, were not so large as now. 
Mauritius being an English colony, of course we paid 
a shilling. Some sentimental Laura Matilda per- 
haps ^' in tears and white muslin," has striven for 
affectionate immortality, by writing on the tomb of 
Virginia, in a rather masculine hand, her name ; and 
also lets admiring gazers know, that when slie is '' to 
hum," she is in Massachusetts. 

Next you have a view of Tomb Bay, where the 
young unfortunate went to her death by shipwreck, and 
after thinking about the height of the breakers, 
and the hardness of the coral reef, you soothe the 
fervid mood by a stroll through one of the most at- 
tractive botanical gardens that the whole East pre- 
sents. The sun poured down his hottest rays, but 
the lofty and strange trees that meet above your 
head, as a Gothic archway, afford shade, and the 
great moisture produced under foot, by this exclusion 
of the sun, brings up a thick green moss, so you walk 



ENGLISH RULE. 61 

on a thick velvet carpet, while on both sides of you, 
rivulets of clear water run gurgling all the time. 
Whether there was ever such people as the two little 
loving recipients of morality, Paul and Virginia, or 
not, or that the Saint Giran was ever wrecked, it is 
a beautiful spot apart from the story. 

But there is reality as well as romance in the Isle 
of France ; the present owner, John Bull, supplies it. 
On the iron gateway under which you pass, in land- 
ing, is '' Victoria Begina," and Victoria Regina levies 
heavy taxes on the planters. A walk on the espla- 
nade shows you a fence of half-buried cannon — the 
trophies of the English when they captured the island 
from the French. In front of the house of the gov- 
ernor, who gets ten thousand dollars more salary 
than our president, red-coats continually mount guard. 
Policemen throng the streets in the same uniform I 
saw in Canada, and in the barrack is quartered a fine 
regiment of fusiliers to keep the people in subjection. 

The island, like others in the Indian ocean, has 
suffered from hurricanes ; the cane may be most prom- 
ising in the field, but destroyed before garnered. The 
most violent hurricane they ever had, piled three 
hundred houses of Port Louis in ruins, and stranded 
thirty ships in its harbor. 

The Portuguese, the discoverers of the island, called 
it Cerni ; the Dutch who came afterward, '^ Mauri- 
tius," after Prince Maurice of Holland ; and the 
French, Isle of France. In the Champ de Mars, a 



62 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

fine open plain, where the regimental bands play, the 
troops drill, and the pretty Creole women take their 
evening drives and promenades, I noticed a very 
tasteful tomb of a French governor, Malartie, which 
was finished by the munificence of Sir William Gomm, 
an English governor. 

Four days after our arrival, being the anniversary 
of the birthday of the Father of our Country, our ship 
was appropriately dressed with our national ensign, 
and at mid-day we fired a salute of twenty-one guns, 
in which the English man-of-war, the " Styx," which 
had reached port, would have joined us, but an order 
from the admiralty forbids the firing of salutes by 
their national vessels unless their battery reaches a 
certain number of guns. 

We reached Mauritius just in time to enjoy its 
pleasant fruits, consisting of the pine-apple, the ba- 
nana, the plantain, the mangoe, and the alligator pear, 
which could be plentifully obtained from the fruit 
boats that flocked around the ship ; and then, too, 
before breakfast, we drained the cocoa's milky bowl. 

With a pleasant remembrance of the hospitalities 
received from the people of Mauritius, we left Port 
Louis for Point de Galle, on the 25th of February. 

We had a run before us of two thousand five hun- 
dred miles, and expected in the stormy ocean we had 
to traverse, to meet with rough weather on the joas- 
sage, perhaps one of those dreaded typhoons ; and that 
its approach might be indicated at the earliest pos- 



DIFFERENCE IN TIME. 63 

sible moment, our barometer had been compared with 
the standard one in the observatory at Mauritius, whose 
able and persevering superintendent is devoting him- 
self to the advance of meteorological information in 
that quarter of the globe, and the increase of nautical 
science, like our own Maury. His name is Bosquet, 
and, at the time of our visit, he was preparing a 
moveable index card, showing the various quadrants 
of a revolving gale or cyclone, which must prove of 
great benefit to the practical navigator in those seas. 
We had a smooth sea during the run, hot weather, 
and a light head wind. When General Pierce was 
taking the oath of office, on the 4th of March, our 
nine o'clock lights were extinguished. 



64 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 



CHAPTER V. 

About nine o'clock of the night of the 10th of 
March, the look-out in the top sang out, " Light, ho !" 
which we knew must be on the island of Ceylon. The 
entrance to the harbor of Point de Galle, being quite 
narrow, we endeavored to get such soundings as 
would enable us to come to anchor until daybreak, 
but not succeeding in this, the ship's head was put 
off shore, and we lay-to for the night. 

That most ancient and quasi-veracious traveller, 
Sir John Mandeville, who had great injustice wrought 
him by the wits of his day, I think it was, who, in 
speaking of the approach to Ceylon said, that the 
spicy odor therefrom could be smelt long before " the 
land thereof might be discerned from the tallest 
mast-head of a ship." If this be true, Sir John, great 
changes have taken place in these latter days. We 
did not detect anything unusually odoriferous in the 
atmosphere ; and I subsequently found that one might 
walk through a cinnamon grove without being at- 
tracted by the scent, as the cinnamon proper is her- 
metically sealed by a kind of epidermis bark, which 



1 




CEYLON. 65 

has to be removed before it is gotten at. The nut- 
meg, with the mace around it, at first of a deep-red 
color, is enveloped in a covering as thick as the en- 
closure of the stone of the apricot, and on the tree 
resembles this fruit before ripening. The " spicy 
breezes" blow very " softly o'er Ceylon's isle." 

The next morning, having gotten a pilot, we ran 
into the harbor of Point de Galle, which .is a very 
contracted one, though quite secure, surrounded by 
groves of the tall cocoa-tree, which nearly conceal 
the town. The town, built by the Portuguese, is en- 
tirely walled in and fortified ; and since its capture 
by the English its defences have been increased. It 
occupies a space equal in extent to Fortress Monroe, 
and was garrisoned by a native rifle regiment, with 
English officers, and a small number of royal artillery. 
These Ceylonese troops are said to show a ferocity 
of courage when in battle, and the arms of their 
light-complexioned commanders frequently have to 
be resorted to, to make them cease firing when the 
order is given. Point de Galle is now one of the 
stopping-places for the peninsula and oriental mail 
steamers en route to China, and the isthmus of Suez. 
There are two other ports on the island : that of 
Colombo, celebrated for its pearl-fisheries and white 
elephants, and that of Trincomalee, from which a 
great quantity of the teak-wood is brought. 

We had scarcely anchored when the ship was sur- 
rounded by native canoes, called d'honies, which, at 



66 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

a little distance, resemble planks edgewise upon the 
water, fifteen or twenty feet in length. They are 
hollowed out of logs so narrow, that the paddling 
occupant usually keeps one leg dangling over the 
side. To prevent their capsizing, a solid log, much 
less in size and length, pointed at both ends, is placed 
about ten feet off and parallel with the boat. This is 
connected with the boat by arched bamboo poles, and 
forms an out-rigger. A. paddle propels them very 
easily, and they sail quite fast. 

These boats were filled with Indiamen and Ceylon- 
ese, who would have been dressed if they had only 
had some garment from the slice of cotton about the 
loin, up to their neck or down to the heel. In a 
short time our decks were filled with them ; also 
Mussulmen and Arabs, with their small oval caps and 
vests, exposing breast and arms, and others wearing 
kerchiefs of all manner of gaudy colors wrapped 
about them and hanging to the knees like a skirt. 
But the thing that strikes you with the most singu- 
larity is, that the men whose heads are not shaved, 
wear their hair in a knot like women, secured to the 
back of the head with a large tortoise-shell comb. 
These fellows "salam'^ you, and their salutation is 
extremely servile. Some of them come for your 
clothes — they are washermen, and return your gar- 
ments with remarkable quickness for the East. Others 
pull out of their kummerbunds at the waist a lot of 
what they call precious stones, and say, " Wantshee, 



POINT DE GALLE. 67 

me have got good mooney stones — star stones, ruby, 
cat's-eye stone, sapphire/' &c. 

" Where every prospect pleases, 
And only man is vile V 

The " prospect" of being cheated is not a pleasant 
one at any time ; and these men are very " vile." 
The fellow will hold the precious jewel to the light, 
and in the dark, vary its position, rub it, and praise it 
with great earnestness and sincerity, but should you 
be verdant enough to purchase the gem, even at half 
the estimate set upon it by him of the land of Gol- 
conda, an ordinary rat-tail file will very soon assure 
you that you have got a fine specimen of cut-glass. 
The genuine, or precious stones, are bought up by 
agents and sent to London. Should their sales grow 
very slack they are most desirous of trading for any 
old clothes you may have — oriental and old clothes ! 
I landed as soon as I could, after our salute, on the 
jutty, from which Mr. Barnum's elephants had been 
shipped, and passing through a walled gate, entered 
the town, the sun shining down fiercely. The houses 
were of a yellow stucco, very low, without glass in 
the windows, generally, and their doors concealed 
behind mat screens. In my stroll in the direction of 
a fine new lighthouse, terminating a picturesque 
point where the sea continually breaks sullenly, my at- 
tention was attracted by a very long, notched white flag, 
with a number of smaller ones on the sides, hanging 



68 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

from a tall mast. On going toward it, I found it 
was placed at the entrance of a walled enclosure, 
which contained a mosque and Mussulman school. 
Fronting the door of the mosque was a pool of not 
the clearest water, enclosed in handsome masonry. 
While I stood there, many of the devout, among 
whom I saw a blind man, came in and washed their 
hands and face, to say nothing of abluting their den- 
tals, previous to proceeding to their devotions inside 
the building ; while in the interior were a number 
kneeling on mats, then sitting back on their bare feet, 
the palms of the hands meanwhile resting on the 
knees, occasionally striking their forehead against 
the tesselated floor, facing in the direction of Mecca. 
Their pointed, clog-like sandals they had left outside. 
I was told I could enter if I would remove my pedal 
covering, but I declined. Removing one's boots after 
a long walk, in a temperature of ninety odd, is not 
exactly the thing. I asked, quizzically, a long-bearded 
old Mussulman standing by, who understood English, 
whether he had any idols in his temple. He replied 
quickly : '' No ; there is but one God : we worshipped 
your Savior and turned our faces to Jerusalem, until 
Mahomet our Savior came— now we turn our faces 
to Mecca." Pointing to a Hindoo temple, he re- 
marked : " They have idols over there, but we are not 
allowed even to eat or drink anything when we are 
near these buildings." 

In a low stone edifice adjacent to this mosque 



A MUSSULMAN SCHOOL. 69 

I glanced in at a school, where fifteen or twenty in- 
fantile scholars of both sexes, whose wardrobe com- 
plete consisted of ankle, waist, and wrist rings, and 
pendent little silver ornaments, squatted on mats. 
In their midst, a la Tark, sat a shaven-headed, 
long-bearded Mussulman, chewing the betel-leaf 
and areca-nut, and uplifting at intervals the rod of 
correction, which was more effective than the ferula 
of the Christian, owing to the scanty costume of the 
juvenile recipients of Mohammedan morality. The 
scholars were engaged in writing with bamboo pens, 
on boards covered with a clay preparation, passages 
from the Koran, which was lying open upon a little 
stand in front of the red-saliva pedagogue. When he 
turned a leaf of his sacred book, he did it with a 
portion of his white garment, never touching the page 
with the naked hand. It appeared to be a free jabber 
on the part of the tender nudes, in Arabic, but if a 
sentence was missed by one, down came the Damo- 
cletian ratan, and the humanity of breeches rushed 
with full force on the mind. The kind heart of Dame 
Partington would have been greatly grieved, and she 
would have philanthropically exclaimed, " Bless the 
inventor of clothing." And " bless the inventor of 
clothing ;" the vitiated taste that can find nothing re- 
pulsive in an exact marble nudity, which, in the flesh 
of the original would be thought with Dogberry, 
" most tolerable and not to be endured," would be 
most fully satiated — gorged — after continually look- 



70 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

ing upon the half-clad and garmentless people of the 
East, no matter how fine their figures. He will cer- 
tainly become of the opinion that dress is a part and 
parcel of a woman, and that she is never so engaging 
in appearance as when clad in Christian garments. 
" G-reek slaves" in bronze don't answer. 

One is struck with the fullness, beauty, and glossi- 
ness of the hair of the natives, especially when he 
bears in mind, that those who do not shave their 
heads, walk uncovered under the hot sun of their 
clime. I had some curiosity to find out the secret of 
this. They use on their hair twice a-week the juice 
of limes, obtained by boiling them, and then dress 
it with an oil pressed cold from the queen cocoa, 
scented with '' citronella," a very singular and power- 
ful perfume which they distil on the island. Sixty 
drops of the citronella is sufficient to perfume a bottle 
of the oil of considerable size. 

Should you sleep ashore at the hotel, you are awoke 
at an early hour and informed that "bathing" is 
ready. Accoutred in a Lazarus-like robe, generally 
known as a sheet, you bid the heathen lead the way, 
and you follow to an outhouse constructed of bamboo 
and mats. Here two fellows pour cold water over 
you from copper " monkeys," in such quick succes- 
sion, that the most inexorable disciple of Priessnitz, 
would be soon forced to cry peccavi. Encased in the 
Lazarus garment you flee into your chamber. You are 
pursued here by a heathen, who tells you " me barber," 



A PIGEON-EXPRESS. 71 

and proceeds to shave one side of the face at a time, 
shampoos your head with lime-juice, and then with- 
draws in favor of another idol-worshipping attendant, 
who mollifies you with a cup of fine coffee. The pleas- 
ant persecution over, you sleep again. 

The news is conveyed from Point do Galle to Co- 
lombo by a pigeon-express, none of your '' fly away to 
my native land, sweet dove," business, with billet-doux, 
and riband around neck, but despatches, which are 
tied to the feet of the bird, who in flying draws them 
up under him, and in that way the paper is kept from 
a wetting, should it rain. The birds from one point 
are sent to the other by a coach, and not being fed in 
this strange cote, upon being turned out with their 
despatch they fly home. They fly seventy-two miles 
in an hour and three quarters. 

This is an outline of modern Ceylon. The men 
who "bow down to wood and stone" here will tell 
you, that the footprints of a man, in stone, on the top 
of a mountain, is the footprint of their God, where he 
stepped over to the main land ; but it is called Adam's 
Peak, and the Mussulmen say that Adam and Eve 
dwelt there. They will tell you that Paradise was in 
the Seventh Heaven, and that Adam and Eve were 
expelled by the command, " Get you down, the one 
of you an enemy to the other, and there shall be a 
dwelling-place for you on earth." Adam fell on 
Ceylon, or Suendib, and Eve at Joddah on the Red 
sea, and after two hundred years the angel Gabriel 



72 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

conducted Adam to where Eve was, and they came 
and dwelt in Ceylon. 

Before leaving Point de Galle, a green boat came 
alongside, bearing an elej)hant flag, out of which came 
the captain of a Siamese man-of-war, to pay a visit of 
courtesy. He was quite a young-looking man, dressed 
in a red jacket with a yellow silk skirt. Behind him 
walked an attendant bearing a pearl box in his hand. 
One of our midshipmen thought this must contain his 
" character." As he spoke but Siamese, and our com- 
modore did not speak Siamese, the interview must 
have been quite satisfactory. 

On the 15th of March we left Point de Galle, and 
headed across the bay of Bengal, in the direction of 
the northwest end of Sumatra. We did not take in 
our entire quantity of coal at Ceylon, but got on 
board fifty tons of the wood of the place, to try the 
experiment of its burning in our furnaces. It did not 
answer ; the expense of consumption per hour was 
twenty dollars, while coal would have been about 
six, and producing less steam, while it induced greater 
danger of setting fire to the ship. In our run across 
the bay of Bengal we had a smooth sea, hot weather, 
and moonlight nights. In five days we were off the 
island of Nicobar, and entered the straits of Malacca, 
the weather changing to squally and rainy. Here 
we passed the English oriental mail-steamer from 
China, having on board commodore Aulick, whose 
late command of the East India squadron was soon to 



STRAITS OF MALACCA. 73 

be assumed by the commodore aboard of our ship. 
Our run through the straits of Malacca was not sig- 
nalized by any remarkable incidents. We saw the 
shore on either hand at times ; passed in sight of the 
English East India penal settlement, Pulo-Penang, 
and close aboard of some most lovely tropical islands, 
anchored at night, and caught some red fish ; made 
lay to, and frightened half to death, the captain of a 
Malay boat, called a parrigue, who had been manoeu- 
vring very suspiciously about nine at night, by firing 
a couple of muskets at him ; and received and re- 
turned a salute. This was the English frigate Cleo- 
patra, in tow of an East India Company's steamer, 
one day's run from Singapore. As they neared, the 
frigate broke stops with an American flag at the fore, 
and let slip with twenty-one guns. The old Missis- 
sippi was not to be caught napping, and although we 
had to lower away our quarter boats to prevent their 
injury by the concussion from our large guns, we soon 
had flying the English ensign at the fore, and replied 
with twenty-one. It is not the greater part of a cen- 
tury, that an American man-of-war would have been 
allowed to pass without any such national courtesy 
being shown by an Englishman. As the two vessels 
passed under our stern and stood on their way, our 
band gave them in its best style, " God save the 
Queen !" 

At one o'clock in the day we were boarded by a 
native pilot, who brought from the consul at Singa- 

4 



74 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

pore a letter-bag for us. It was the first news we 
had gotten directly, since leaving the United States, 
then out eighty days, and almost antipodal to our 
homes, and no one but he who has experienced it can 
appreciate fully the joy of getting a letter at such a 
time. It was the first that had come to me away 
from my own land, and I could have hallooed. 

In the afternoon we rounded in among some beauti- 
ful islands, standing like verdure indexes to the 
harbor, and soon after anchored in the English free 
port of Singapore, about two miles from the shore. 

And first the boats — yes, the boats. There are no 
more characteristic things of a people than their 
water vehicles. The enormous ^' Himalaya" steam- 
ship is the card that Great Britain sends out upon 
the ocean ; the magnificent clipper-ships of our own 
America, as they ride at anchor in the " gorgeous 
East," or the world over, as impatient steeds to break 
their tether, not in comparison, but outstripping by 
contrast far the naval architecture of any other people, 
do not evince the onward and upward march of the 
United States, more fully than does the stupid, cum- 
bersome, unsightly junk, show the inertia of the opin- 
ionated Mongolian. 

The Malay boats around the ship soon after we ar- 
rived, were most symmetrical in proportion, and pretty 
to look at. They are " dug-outs," rather crank, but 
beautifully and sharply modelled. The song of the na- 
tive rowers is quite strange, and far from unpleasing. 



MALAY BOATS. 75 

The man who sits behind you in the sharp stern, 
steering with a paddle, pitches his voice, and gives 
the key-note of the " barbaric pearl" ditty (that is, 
I supposed, it must have been something about bar- 
baric pearls), goes on with the burden, and the two 
rowers amidships, rather indifferent to the fact that 
the unsteadiness of their boat does not suit you, musi- 
cally chorus, "A— lah! A— lah! El— lei— la!" 
Their larger boats called prahus, with their graceful 
latine sails, move with great rapidity through the 
water, and are said to be as elegantly modelled as 
any yacht " America." Indeed, some are of the 
opinion that the fast modern pleasure-boat, owes its 
origin to the prahus of the Malay. 

Thackeray, in his " Cornhill to Cairo," has most 
pleasantly and truly described the keen relish which 
is afforded to travel if one could be taken up, and 
suddenly translated — or immersed as it were — 
among a people entirely different in complexion, 
habit, and costume, from his own. Unfortunately you 
are deprived of this in the East ; your arrival at one 
place is continually anticipating another ; and so at 
Singapore, most unwillingly, you get too large a slice 
of the picture, too much foretaste of the grand " cen- 
tral," " celestial," '' flowery," " middle kingdom," 
though in a few days' run of China. The first thing 
that met our gaze, laying in shore of us, their un- 
sightly masts unshipped, their large sails under cover, 
their high sterns and decks in the shadow of mats 



76 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION* 

and bamboo, waiting for a change of the monsoon 
that they might go back to Quangtung or Pungching, 
were moored the ungainly Chinese junks. Of course, 
as is invariably the case, even on their smaller boats, 
from either side of the square bow peers the big 
painted eye; and if the stranger should be curious 
enough to inquire why they are put there, the matter- 
of-fact Chinaman, with a " Hy-yah," — more expres- 
sive than the shoulder shrug of the Frenchman — 
would make answer, " No hab eye, how can see ?" 

On landing, the Chinese features of the place are 
found to predominate over all others, though the 
population of the town is also composed of English 
merchants, Malays, Arabs, Jews, Parsees, Hindoos, 
&c., amounting in all to about forty thousand. You 
no sooner put foot on the stairs that lead from the 
little bridged river, which equally divides the city, 
than your ears are filled with the interminable bang- 
ing of gongs, more terrific than those which broke on 
the tympanum of Mr. Benjamin Bowbell when he was 
going to be buried alive with an Eastern princess. 
If a Chinese funeral is progressing, the gong is heard, 
if some mart has just been opened, or a public sale is 
to take place, beat the gong, and at sundown from 
the junk, ''Joss" is " chin-chinn'd " by gong-beating. 
The streets present a scene of much bustle and activ- 
ity, and traversing them are the most grotesque and 
picturesque oriental costumes — the large tassel pen- 
dent from the Pez cap of the Parsee, of as bright a 



SINGAPORE. 77 

scarlet, or his loose vest of as deep a blue, and the 
handle of his pipe just as long, as others that I had 
seen at prior places. 

On the eastern side of the town, fronting on a fine 
parade or drive, are the residences principally of the 
Europeans, with the exception of some who have 
their bungaloes near the suburbs. Here are also 
situated government-offices, a very plain-looking Prot- 
estant church, whose swinging fans mitigate the in- 
tense heat to the worshipping congregation ; a very 
fine hotel, under whose pleasant mahogany — located 
in arbored buildings, kept cool by moving punkas — 
we so agreeably placed our knees, to enjoy fine fruits, 
and for a time, keep from the rays of a torrid sun ; 
and a pyramidal column, whose inscription tells in 
English, Arabic, and Hindostanee, how grateful the 
people there resident are for the service rendered 
them, while a prominent member of the East India 
Company's government, by one Earl Dalhousie. He 
may be a scion of Pope's 

'^Next comes Dalhousie/' &c. 

On the esplanade, when the sun pales his fire in the 
evening, a tesselated group composed of the juvenile 
cockney, the Cingalese, the Parsee, and, of course, 
" John Chinaman," take their evening promenade, 
while the wealthier natives who have been snoozing 
all day come out in their gigs for a drive. Those of 
more moderate pretensions, who can muster a half- 



78 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

rupee, get into a palanquin — pronounced palankee — 
for the purpose. These are small four-wheeled ve- 
hicles with mat cushions, capable of holding four per- 
sons. The turbaned and waist-scarfed Lascar driver, 
though he has a seat apportioned him, and sufficient 
reins, prefers coiling them over his arms, takes his 
little horse by the cheek of the bit, and running be- 
side him, continually encourages him into a gallop. 
Some meddling English, with accompanying mistaken 
philanthropy, endeavored to get an order passed by 
which the dear syces should be made to save them- 
selves fatigue and ride on their seats, but the dear 
syces preferred their old custom, and protested 
strongly against, any such innovation. About a mile 
from the settlement are a large collection of houses 
occupied by the Malays, who, although under the pro- 
tection of the English, still continue their custom of 
building their houses over the water, elevated on 
posts and separately, that they may feel freer from 
attack, or the visits of live animals. These latter they 
have not much to dread now. Singapore is on an 
island separated from the main land by a narrow 
strip of water, and tigers sometimes swim over, but 
they are soon despatched, as the government pays a 
reward of a hundred dollars for each one killed. On 
my ride to this point I passed some tombs of former 
rajahs, and also saw a number of wooden houses that 
were being fitted up for shipment to Australia. We 
stopped at a factory where that pleasant farina, sago, 



THE JOSS-HOUSE. 79 

was being prepared. It is made from the pith of a 
tree ; is first placed in vats that it may become dis- 
solved, then exposed to the sun to dry, after which 
any foreign substance is removed by sifting, when it 
is packed, ready for exportation, at three dollars and 
sixty cents per pecul. The proprietor was a very 
polite and good-natured old Chinaman ; by-the-by, 
nearly all Chinamen are very good-natured : kick 
"John Chinaman,'' and smile as you do it, and he will 
smile too ; do it with a frown, and he becomes very 
indignant. The old fellow had the customary num- 
ber of hogs, whose quarters, whatever may be said of 
the want of cleanliness of their celestial owner's 
house, receive great attention. 

Not far from here we went through the ward of a 
hospital for English sailors, and also another for Chi- 
nese, whose inmates were lying on elevated and in- 
clined shelves, the victims of every terrible disease 
of the climate. 

The Joss-house at Singapore is as fine, though it 
may be not as large, as any to be seen in China. An 
elaborately-designed and gaudily-ornamented pagoda, 
of colored porcelain, rises from its centre ; its door- 
way is guarded by two gorgons dire, in a sitting 
posture, in whose snarling mouths large balls have 
been ingeniously carved, so that you may place your 
hand between the teeth and roll them about, yet the 
whole is cut from a block of blue flinty granite. The 
court and alley are paved with colored porcelain 



80 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

tiles, while the altar and the sleepy idol that fills its 
rear, are decorated expensively and fantastically. 
One of the wings of this temple, from which issued a 
more cook-shop than savory smell, I noticed was 
appropriated as a kind of popular restaurant, and 
filled with Chinamen down to the lower cooly, all 
seated at small tables, uttering their mushy jargon, 
and bolting with chop-sticks the boiled paddy. Their 
proximity to their " Joss-pigeon " neither restrained 
their appetites nor their noisiness. " John Chinaman " 
will tell you that ^' Joss'' (a word which they are 
supposed to have gotten by a corruption of "Dios" 
from their Portuguese neighbors at Macao) is a very 
good man, but that there is no reason why he should 
have a large temple all to himself. Opposite the 
temple I saw the first Chinese " Sing-Song," a street- 
theatre, made by the elevation of a staging of bam- 
boos covered with mats. Upon " these our players," 
gaudily attired, and accompanied by caterwauling in- . 
struments and " tom-toms," appear to the infinite de- 
light of their street auditors, who guffaw loud their 
approval, as they stand protected from the sun under 
their paper umbrellas. 

At Singapore is the prison in which nearly all the 
convicts from the possessions of the English are con- 
fined, and a collection of more villanous visages 
could not be met with in the walls of any other jail. 
Those who have been convicted of murder, have the 
word "Doomga" — Hindostanee for their crime — 



THE RAJAH OF JOHORE. 81 

branded on their forehead. Those who have been 
guilty of lesser offences are put into chain-gangs, and 
made to keep the road in order. There was one in- 
mate, in the person of a negro, from Long Island, 
who had been sentenced for fifteen years. 

Singapore was established by the English as a 
competitor for the trade of the Dutch at Batavia, in 
the East Indian Archipelago, and being declared a 
free port, has accomplished the desired result to a 
very great degree. Numbers of prahus, that can 
play pirating or trading as the opportunity presents, 
come there, bringing their commodities, but princi- 
pally that they may get powder and shot, to play 
Lambro with neighboring Dyaks. It was founded 
in 1819, and settled with the consent of the rajah 
of Johore, a part of whose possessions it was. This 
rajah still receives a large annuity from the English, 
and resides in the vicinity of the place. With a friend 
I drove out to his place. The building was a plain 
one, fronted with a verandah, and the entrance orna- 
mented with two little brass howitzers. We were re- 
ceived by the rajah's son, who spoke a little English. 
He was gaudily attired in turban made by wrapping 
a parti- colored kerchief about the head, from his 
side hung a handsomely-mounted dagger, and he also 
sported a fine gold watch. His features were quite 
handsome for a Malay. We were ushered into an 
upper room, at one end of which, on a sofa, with his 

feet drawn up under him, similarly attired with him- 

4^ 



82 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

self, sat his father the rajah, and his brother whom 
we understood to be a " sultan" of some neighboring 
province or country. On the table in front of them 
lay their krisses, the hilts inlaid with costly jewels. 
They were quite jolly-looking old fellows, and had a 
great many questions to ask about the mission on 
which our ship was bound, &c., but the defective 
translation of his son made the business of answering 
a slow one. Before leaving him he caused tea and 
sweetmeats to be brought in, and joined us quite 
sociably. The next day his son paid us a visit aboard 
ship. 

On the 29th of March, we left Singapore, and in a 
short time were heading our gourse in the China sea. 
On the 2d of April the heat became very oppressive. 
What little breeze moved on the water was aft, and 
the steamer moving faster than it, the windsails which 
led to the lower quarters of the ship afforded no com- 
fort, and hung collapsed from their halyard. Some 
of our firemen, whose duties always severely onerous, 
but particularly so in those burning latitudes, fainted 
as they stood in the fire-room while feeding their fur- 
naces. Such is the exhausting efi'ect of the climate 
on those engaged by the peninsular and oriental 
steamers, that engineers and firemen, it is said, are 
rotated at intervals, with those engaged on the more 
healthy part of the route on the other side of the 
isthmus of Suez. The greatest mortality among them 
arises from diseases of the liver. 



THE Lx\DEONE ISLANDS. 88 

*' All Pools' Day'' is not forgotten on shipboard. 
The better to remember it in the yomiger messes, it 
is set apart for the celebration of the caterer's birth- 
day (of course the caterer is born on that day) ; the 
table is spread in the best way, and not until the 
caterer's health has been proposed in sherry — " bump- 
ers and no heel-taps" — and the wine-glasses emptied, 
does the choking sensation remind the uninitiated that 
he has bolted a wine-glass of rather strong whiskey. 

In two or three days the weather suddenly changed 
to blanket temperature ; we ran into a heavy head 
sea ; the spray was chilly, and the sun sank as if in 
the cold gray of autumn. On the morning of the 
6th April, the Ladrone islands appeared in sight, and 
we ran into a fleet of some three hundred Chinese 
fishing boats — we were off the shores of the Middle 
Kingdom. The sight of these awkward boats, with 
their build, showing what travellers to Cathay have 
called the celestial propensity to "reverse" every- 
thing, was an interesting one. But why say the Chi- 
nese reverse ? They had a national existence, when 
these our moderns were not even in embryo ; their 
laws had an existence long before the code of Lycur- 
gus was promulged, and their hieroglyphic record 
goes away back to a period which our own sacred 
revelation does not compass, so it is we who reverse. 
John Chinaman knows that though the stern of his 
boat is broad and high ; that its bow runs wedge-like 
and low ; that his masts, instead of raking aft, lean 



84 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

forward ; and if his boat, under sail, look as if she 
was going to run under, still that she has borne him 
safely when many a "ty-fung" blew. We wished a 
pilot, but in answer to the inquiry whether any could 
furnish one, they nodded assent, and held up fish and 
some rice. The weather being thick we ran in under 
one of the Ladrones and anchored for the night in 
thirty fathoms water, and fired a gun for a pilot. The 
next morning at daybreak, we ran in and anchored 
in the roadstead of the old Portuguese city of Macao, 
about four miles from the shore. Though the turbid 
water all around, and the naked islands that encom- 
passed the anchorage, did not afford a prospect calcu- 
lated to prepossess one with his first glance at the 
" Flowery Kingdom," still we had a feeling of gladness 
that after an almost uninterrupted run of over four 
months we had reached our goal, or the region which 
was to be the theatre of our movements-— yes, for 
months. 

Our stoppage was short ; after communicating with 
the navy store-keeper and the authorities ashore, re- 
ceiving an official visit from the Portuguese captain 
of the port, and procuring a Chinese pilot, we lifted 
anchor, and stood over for the more flourishing Eng- 
lish colonial town of Hong Kong. We reached this 
place after doubling through denuded steep islands, 
about seven o'clock in the evening. The ships of the 
East India squadron lying in the harbor, who having 
had some intimation of our proximity to the station by 



HONG KONG. 85 

the mail-steamers from Ceylon, were on the qui vive 
for our approach. The old Mississippi, with the 
broad pennant at her masthead, no sooner emerged 
from behind the western point of the island, than the 
^'Saratoga" and "Plymouth" sloops-of-war hoisted 
their numbers and saluted. The store-ship, " Supply," 
we also found there. Our ship was soon filled by 
brother American officers from the other ships, come 
to salute and welcome old friends, and hoping that 
the mail-bags we had from the United States, had 
brought each one " good news from home." The 
meetings were so joyous and so cordial that we did 
not remember that they were taking place on the 
other side of the globe. Officers from the English 
and French men-of-war also came aboard to pay their 
respects. 

The oriental salute seldom consists of more than 
three guns, and many of the natives of the East are 
unable to see why this number should be fired ; they 
can not comprehend why you should burn in compli- 
ment the same material, which you would employ in 
sending deadly missiles at them, if in anger. But we, 
Christian nations, manage things differently ; and the 
next day after our arrival told it : from the rising 
to the setting of the sun nearly, it was powder burn- 
ing. Upon hoisting the colors at eight o'clock we 
saluted the town with twenty-one guns, and twenty- 
one were returned by a water-battery ; the French 
saluted us and we saluted them ; then came the ad- 



86 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

miral and commodorial salutes, English and French, 
which were returned in the old style by letting fall 
fore-top sails the while ; and so that day the noise of 
one hundred and seventy-nine guns, broke and tum- 
bled along the naked hills of Hong Kong, with nearly 
as splendid an effect as at St. Helena. 

The harbor of Hong Kong is a very commodious 
and well-sheltered one, in the shape of a half-moon, 
and its three entrances of Green Island, Oapsing- 
moon, and Lymoon passages, can not be seen from its 
centre. On a shelf which makes a circular sweep, 
cut at the base of towering volcanic hills, is built the 
town named in honor of the present sovereign of Great 
Britain. Victoria, from the water, presents a fine 
appearance, with its stuccoed warehouses, or " go- 
downs," at the beach, and the private residences and 
churches rising from plateaus made by immense labor 
above ; and the massive stone government of&ces and 
barracks that appear on the left, tell how firmly the 
English plant their foot in the East, and how triumph, 
with them, is synonymous with occupancy of a slice 
of an enemy's territory. This colony is the result of 
their opium war in China. Our stay was short : the 
commodore despatched the '' Plymouth" to Shanghae, 
and, in the Mississippi, ran over to Macao, an inland 
run of thirty-nine miles. 



MACAO. 87 



CHAPTER VI. 

We anchored in Macao roads about mid-day, per- 
haps on the very spot, where a sailor's malice fired a 
magazine, and blew high in air, with a noise like thun- 
der, the atoms that composed the Portuguese frigate 
Donna Maria ^ some years before. Macao, though in, 
is not of China ; instead of the low hut-like structures 
of unburnt blue brick and fantastic tile of the Celes- 
tial, the eye, as it takes in the fine sweep of the Praya, 
rests on large mansions whose verandahs exclude the 
sun, whose portals are spacious and stylish, and whose 
stucco little discolored by time, only appears all tho 
more impressive, and sees rising on the eminence 
behind venerable cathedrals ; while garrisons, crown 
batteries, and old-looking forts on either side, with 
the ensign of Portugal, define its ownership, and 
make the picture more imposing. It was here that 
the zeal of the Jesuit commenced the propagation of 
his faith and questioned the ethics of Confucius ; it 
was here that the " glory and shame" of Portugal — 
one-eyed Camoens — disgusted at the country which 
could neither appreciate his genius nor reward his 



88 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

courage, spent in voluntary exile five years of his 
life and completed the Lusiad — that poem which, 
when shipwrecked, he saved from destruction by swim- 
ming and holding it above water, and that was ulti- 
mately to meet with the worse fate of being rendered 
into another language by Panshaw. It was here that the 
English displayed the surreptitious boldness of carry- 
ing away, by the power of arms, from Portuguese cus- 
tody, a missionary who had been guilty of the bad 
manners and overt nonsense of offending people not 
his own, by a refusal of compliance with a very ordi- 
nary custom, on the occasion of a catholic procession, 
at a time when the authorities and the greater part 
of the population were witnessing a boat regatta in 
their harbor ; and it was at the outer barrier of Ma- 
cao, that its governor, a few years ago, while taking 
an evening ride with one of his aids, was cut to 
pieces by the revengeful Chinamen, because of his 
having caused a road to be made through one of their 
burial-places in the vicinity. 

On anchoring, a number of us paid a visit to the 
shore, which was some distance, in a Chinese " fast- 
boat," the ship's boats being seldom used in those 
countries, both because of a sanitary regard for a 
ship's company, who would suffer from long rows 
under a new and sickly sun, and because the Chi- 
nese ^conveyances are scarcely the tax of a song : a 
" fast-boat," with a crew of three or four rowers, 
which also serves as the floating habitation of the 



CHINESE PAST-BOAT. 89 

owner and a family composed of as many more, can 
be employed for constant attendance on a man-of-war 
for a very small number of dollars per month. They 
are always at hand ; when not going they are made 
fast astern, and when triangulating between Wham- 
poa, Macao, and Hong-Kong, they follow with Euth 
and Naomi constancy. Will we forget you, old Ash- 
ing ? — with your punctuality and good-natured readi- 
ness, whether disturbed at your chow-chow, or called 
at late hour of the night ? Then, too, your ever 
equable philosophy ; the Irish pilot knew the rocks 
in the channel well, especially when he thumped on 
top of one ; but your foresight, far surpassing his, 
always told us, in answer to the question, '^ Can you 
take us off ?" — '^ Supposeetoo much no good wind, no 
can catchee ship : Supposee no too muchee bad wind, 
can catchee ship," — which was so solacing. The 
name "fast-boat" is a misnomer, except when chased 
by a good wind, and then they move through the 
water, impelled by their large mat-sails, with great 
rapidity. They are built in a wedgelike shape, gen- 
erally some twenty feet long, with a small indented 
place with seats under matting for their passengers, 
and movable decks, below which the crew stretch 
themselves to sleep. Since the days of the " old 
woman who lived in a shoe," nothing can be found 
which has been made to contain more human beings 
in the same space than a Chinese fast, or tanka boat, 
besides having room for cooking purposes, a water- 



90 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

tank, a spare spar, and a small altar, in whose front 
a joss-stick kept burning propitiates their tutelar 
deity. Ye pampered denizens of the crowded city, 
upon whose elbows the bricks and mortar of more 
plebeian neighbors crowd too close, go and learn of 
those human bees of the world, economy of space. 

The water becomes so shoal before reaching the 
stone pier, that the little vessel lowers sail and drops 
anchor — this shoalness is the result of that want of 
force or energy, which, shown in the decline of Goa, 
could not maintain the fortifications of Point de Galle 
after building them, and which from sudden and un- 
healthy culmination, has marked the downfall of all 
the Portuguese possessions in the East. 

We were encompassed by tanka-boats — so named 
from their resemblance in shape to an egg — a great 
number of which they could scarcelj^ contain. Their 
maiden proprietors, with their pretty teeth, big nan- 
keen breeches, nicely-plaited hair, small bare feet and 
braceleted wrists, at once set up the cry, '' Takee my 
boatee !— takee my boatee !" Some one having taken 
the cockle-shell barge of Atti, and some other that 
of Aqui, a few moves of the powerful skull of the Ce- 
lestial Charon at the stern, as her small feet step back 
and forth on a neatly-scoured miniature platform, and 
a few pulls at the sweep-oar of the Celestial Charon 
in the bow, and the boat now is in the sand of the 
beach. One of the maidens, with none of the aver- 
sion of the feline species, steps over into the water, 



THE BOCCA TIGRIS. 91 

arranges a small cricket-bridge, and balance-pole of 
bamboo, and with the right hand of fellowship helps 
you up on the nice stone jutty. Up, you walk to 
Franck's hotel, on the wide and level praya, leading 
to the circular promenade on which the Rip Van 
Winkle population, when the hot sun is nearly down, 
go to take their ante-supper walk and evening airing. 
On the 18th of April we left the anchorage of the 
old Portuguese city, and started for our first visit to 
the anchorage of Canton for ships drawing twenty 
feet of water. We stood across the wide and turbid 
estuary of the Pekiang, and about twelve o'clock we 
reached the Bocca Tigris — the proper mouth of the 
Canton river — and passed the forts of the Bogue, 
that the English ships Andromache, Imogen, and 
others, handled so badly as they held on their way 
up to their great city. We were detained some time 
before reaching here, by having towed under an itin- 
erant fast-boat who had made fast astern. It took 
some time to right his boat, bail her, and take off the 
crew who huddled on her keel. The fellow was 
attempting to smuggle salt which made his boat too 
deep. He afterward fell into the hands of some of 
the river pirates who infest the waters of China. We 
ran through fish-stakes innumerable, passed pagodas 
— those lofty, circular, terraced piles of brick and 
porcelain, which some of the Chinamen tell you were 
built to mark the commencement of learning and civ- 
ilization with them, and others that they keep off 



92 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

evil spirits from the country visible from their tops — 
and at three o'clock were moored in Whampoa Reach, 
surrounded by merchant-ships of all nations ; from the 
mountainous old East Indiaman, to the (cynosure of 
all) magnificent American clippers. 'Tis here, of all the 
world, in a limited space, that the alpha and omega 
of naval architecture are to be seen — the " Flying 
Cloud," the " Sea Serpent," and the Chinese salt-junk. 
After chartering a Peruvian-built bark as a coal- 
ship for the squadron, and ordering two officers to 
her, allowing those of the Mississippi to make a hur- 
ried visit to Canton, and shipping about forty Chinese 
coolies, whose names puzzled the purser to enter, we 
returned to Macao and then to Hong-Kong. On the 
27th April we left the latter place for the more north- 
ern port of Shanghae, where the steam-frigate Sus- 
quehanna awaited the arrival of the commodore, who 
proposed making her his flag-ship because of her no- 
ble spaciousness. We went out by the Lymoon pas- 
sage, and with the ship deeply laden with coal, stag- 
gered along up the Formosa channel. For a few days 
we had a mist so thick that it precipitated in rain, 
and afterward a fog so thick that we ran slowly and 
cautiously not to go over Chinese fishermen, and also 
to take soundings, for which purpose the engines were 
stopped at intervals. Our band played at intervals : 
the English-coast pilot on board had a Kanaka ser- 
vant with him ; this fellow would listen to the music 
with much interest and seem delighted : the Chinese 



THE YANG-TSE-KIANG. 93 

cooley would move about the deck the while, appa- 
rently perfectly unconscious of, or indifferent to the 
sweet strains, or if he observed at all, his smooth and 
sinister face looked his disapproval of such a barba- 
rian noise. 

Our first of May suggested anything else but floral 
association. It was cold and raw ; blowing fresh, and 
a heavy head-sea, which, during the night, smashed in 
the port side of the head-rail of the ship ; deck wet, 
sky overcast; no observations, to determine our posi- 
tion could be taken ; poor little land-birds, ejected 
from domicil, were perched in the rigging, too much 
benumbed to work their passage, and around were 
small junks of the Chinaman, "laying-to," with basket- 
drags from head and stern, like floating anchors. 

On the 3d, we entered the mouth of the Yang-tse- 
kiang — it being remembered that kiang is the Chi- 
nese for river. The water is as muddy as that of the 
Pekiang. Just inside of an island, bearing the eu- 
phonic name of the orientalist and quasi-missionary, 
Gutzlaff, we got an English pilot who gave us the first 
intelligence of the doings of the rebel army, up the 
river, in the vicinity of Nanking. The navigation of 
the Yang-tse is exceedingly intricate, owing to hard 
and shifting bars, which rendered it necessary for a 
ship of our size to proceed with much caution. The 
shores were low and white, and resembled the coast 
of Florida. Shanghae is situated on the Woosung 
river, which empties into the Yang-tse at the village 



94 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

of Woosung, and after reaching the village and an- 
chorage for opium-ships, you run off to the left and 
southwest for Shanghae. Nothing can exceed the 
closeness and thoroughness of the cultivation visible 
on the bank on both sides of this tortuous stream ; it 
looks like one great market-garden, and the wonder- 
ful industry of its cultivators, says to the black soil, 
month in and month out, " Give ! give !" The unre- 
mitting toil, and the uninterrupted use of ammoniacal 
fertilizers never allow the earth to be weary of well- 
doing. No wonder agriculture is so fostered by the 
government, and that once a year the imperial cousin^ 
&c., to the planetary system, should, by holding the 
plough in the field, attempt the impossibility of add- 
ing dignity to the labors of the husbandman. 

A few hours' run after entering the Woosung, en- 
abled us to descry the Susquehanna and the Plymouth, 
the bend of the river, and the low and level paddy- 
fields, causing them to appear as if enclosed by dry 
land. The salute of the former came to us over any 
quantity of waving rice. The river, at the city, is 
quite narrow, and we anchored in the Chow-chow 
water — which, with the upturned mud, curls and ed- 
dies and turns back and runs on, causing the ships 
to swing every way at their anchors — just opposite 
to the numerous houses of the foreign residents, and 
a short row from a stone quay and level walk which 
imported cockneyism calls " the Bund.^^ 

Below where we lay, across Suchow creek, was to 



SHANGHAE. 95 

be seen a neat little protestant church, with a small 
tower, and the unpretending residences of the mis- 
sionaries of protestant churches, whose unremitting- 
labors, and social deprivation, deserve better reward 
than the mere partial success with which they meet. 
Above the consulate and hongs, commences the city, 
its walls approaching the water's edge, and running 
some distance back. A short walk through a crowded 
and muddy suburb and you enter one of the gates. The 
imperial authority, the Taoutae, fearing an attack 
from the adherents of the rebel chief, Thae-ping-Wang, 
had fortified the place, and most of the silk and other 
stores were closed. Previous to our arrival they 
had experienced the shock of an earthquake, which 
had shaken down a wall or so. I passed through the 
narrow, sloppy streets, but the scene was far from 
the animated one that we had seen in Canton. The 
population, whose complexions and persons are better 
than in the more southern districts, were evidently 
apprehensive that there was soon to be " too muchee 
bobbery," or fighting. But nothing can restrain the 
lower classes from their insatiate vice of gambling. 
In the tea-gardens, from morning to night, it was to 
be seen going on ; while the " sing-song" theatres 
were amusing others. At the entrance to a joss- 
house*, and along the streets, were to be seen the hor- 
rible ghastly emaciation, and foamy mouths, of dead 
and dying beggars, in filthy tattered rags, to whose 
presence the passers-by seemed utterly indifierent. 



96 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Some had dragged themselves to die on the flag-stone 
crossing of a small stream, that they might possibly 
get interment ; it being said that any one who touched 
them, is compelled to have this office performed. 

The occupants of the foreign hongs had formed a 
volunteer, or patrol company, for the custody of 
their property, and under the protection of the guns 
of quite a large English and American force, were 
having their amusement, indifferent to -Taontae, or 
Thae-ping-wang. Dinners were given at the consul- 
ates, a la Chinois^ at which the American and English 
envoys were present ; and at night parties were given 
by these functionaries, and well attended ; or a neatly- 
printed bill with '' Imperial Theatre, Shanghai, and 
Vivant Regina and Princess^^^ requested the honor 
of your c'ompany, to witness the dramatic doings of 
'^ her majesty's servants," of the English brig " Lily." 
Then, too, there was the "spring meeting of the 
Shanghae races," which were interesting, and ridicu- 
lous too, at times. The course was not very extensive, 
but quite well thronged, here and there a Tartar 
soldier being visible in the crowd. The races, in 
which I noticed Mr. T'hen Tih had entered his steed 
Qui-Qui, were : — 

1. — The Griffin's Handicap. — For China Ponies that have run 
in the Griffin's Plate, and whose owners have subscribed to this Handi- 
cap ; the winner of the Griffin's Plate excluded. — Heats once round 
from the Willows, — Ponies to be handicapped after the Griffin's Plate 
is run for. — Subscribers may start two Ponies for one subscription. 
Prizes from amount subscribed to be appropriated to 1st, 2d, and 3d 



THE SHANGHAE RACES. 97 

Ponies in six shares. — The winner of the race to receive 3 shares, the 
second Pony 2, and the third 1 share.- — The second and third Ponies 
in the last heat to be the winners of the second and third prizes.— 
Entrance $10, and half forfeit if declared on or before 8th April. 

2. — The Tsatlee Cup,— Value $75, for all Ponies. — ^Entrance $3 
each to second Pony. — -Weight for inches. — Winner of the Manilla 
Cup to carrv 14 lbs, extra* and of Chaa-see Cup 7 lbs. extra. — Twice 
round. 

3. — The Pang-king-pang Stakes, — Of $2 each with $20 from 
the fund for China Po?izes.— Weight for inches.— Once round from 
the Willows. 

4. — The Ladies' Purse and Plate, — Value $50 for all Ponies. — 
Entrance $3 each.— Weight for inches. — Twice round. 

5.— The Persian Cup,— Value $50.— Second Pony $15.— For 
China Ponies only. — Entrance $3 each. — Weight for Inches. — Once 
round from the Willows. 

6. — The Forced Handicap, — ^For all Winning Ponies at this 
meeting to be handicapped by the Stewards.— Entrance $3 each with 
$30 from the fund. — Once round and a distance. 

7. — The Celestial Stakes, — ^For all Beaten China Ponies at 
this meeting.— Entrance $3 with $30 from the fund. Weight for 
inches. — Once round and a distance. 

8. — The Native Purse, — Value 15,000 cash, for all Ponies, — 
Indian and Chinese riders. — -Post entries to the clerk of the course. 
No entrance fee. — Twice round. 

The native horses are small, and the native saddles 
clumsy in the extreme, with their large iron-lever 
stirrups ; and when John Chinaman, perched like a 
monkey on his shoulders, pushed his pony for the 
purse, the scene was exceedingly ludicrous. Four- 
teen cash make one cent, so the amount won in the 
last race was not so great as one would think. 

On the 9th the commodore, with the customary 
manning of yards and salute, shifted his broad pennant 

6 



98 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

from tlie Mississippi to the Susquehanna, and the 
British war-steamer " Hermes/' which had been to 
take the English plenipotentiary to the camp of the 
rebel chief below Nanking, returned with that func- 
tionary, whose mission had not proven propitious. 
Her officers stated that on their way up the river, 
near Cheang-foo, they were fired at by the rebel 
forces, and above Nanking by the imperial troops, but 
without injury. In an interview with them, the Eng- 
lish assured them that their visit was both friendly 
and neutral. The rebels expressed regret at the 
firing, and said they would send down an order to 
prevent its recurrence. There being a difficulty be- 
tween Thae-ping-wang and the English embassador, 
Sir S. George Bonham, as to the preliminaries of an in- 
terview, the " favorite of Heaven" not willing to make 
any concessions, the steamer returned, and was again 
fired at, one shot striking her hull, and another the 
main-yard and backstay. The " Hermes" let slip at 
them, knocking over some of their guns, and passed 
on. At a place called Silver island they stopped to 
take a look at the idols the rebels had broken, when 
one of their generals came down with an apologetic 
letter about the firing; it was a mistake. This 
general said himself, and those united with him in 
the struggle, were protestant Christians ; that they 
did not tolerate opium, tobacco, or profanity, and 
worshipped not idols, but the one God. If they were 
successful they would open Nanking to all tlie world. 



WRECK OF A JUNK. 99 

At that time a great deal of aid to the labors of 
the missionaries in China, was predicted from their 
movements, which subsequent events have not realized. 
The store-ship " Supply," of our squadron hav- 
ing gotten ashore at the mouth of the Yang-tse 
on the " north bank," we were suddenly despatch- 
ed to her assistance, but discovered she had gotten 
afloat before the Mississippi reached her anchorage. 
Below Woosung we took in tow a large teak-wood 
junk, manned by Chinamen, and laden with coal, 
which we were to take aboard after getting over 
the bar. On the 18th, while waiting for the Sus- 
quehanna, the tide changed, the old junk drifted 
into us threatening to crush our quarter-boats, so she 
was cast off. The ancient pig-tail mariner who pre- 
sided over her crew and helm, though conscious of 
drifting each moment on a dangerous bank, would not 
cast his anchor, because, as it was afterward be- 
lieved, he thought the ^' fanquis" of the American 
steamer were going to tow him out to sea ; the conse- 
quence was, the wind and sea having increased, the 
junk struck, and the tide soon falling, she was hard 
and fast. Boats were sent to her assistance, but the 
breakers prevented her from being reached, before a 
late hour of the night, when the officer sent with the 
boats seeing it impossible to get her off, and seven 
feet water in her hold, she was abandoned, and the 
crew brought aboard of the Mississippi. A dismal 
looking set of Celestial scape-graces they were, and 



100 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

presented a motley group as they sat around their 
pig-tail Falconer encased in an antique fur cape, 
jabbering about their escape. Before our boats were 
able to reach them, they had illuminated their cabin 
altar, burned perfumed sticks and paper, and chin- 
chinned Joss with great vim, but their stupid little 
tutelar deity not having responded to their prayers 
for assistance, they became indignant, tossed Mr. Joss, 
altar, perfumed sticks, and all, overboard, and betook 
themselves to the more sensible thing of building a 
raft of bamboos and their huge mat sails, with which 
they proposed, when the sea went down, to risk their 
safety. They were sent back to Shanghae by the 
pilot-boat, having subjected Uncle Sam to some three 
thousand dollars' loss, besides nearly all of the crew 
of the boat, that slept aboard of her, had the "junk 
fever," and one afterward died from it. 

The weather continuing very rough, the wind at 
times changing in five minutes to the opposite point 
of the compass, we laid under Saddle island for two 
or three days, when, with the " Supply" in tow, and 
in company with the now flag-ship, " Susquehanna," 
on the 23d of May, we took our departure for the 
Loo-Choo islands. 



GENERAL ORDERS. 101 



CHAPTER YII. 

The island of Great Loo-Choo appeared in sight 
after a run of three days from China. Previous to 
reaching there, the commodore issued a general order, 
requiring look-outs to be kept in port as at sea, during 
the stay of the squadron among the Japanese islands, 
and all movements of vessels or collections of 
boats were to be reported to the officer of the deck, 
and by him to his superiors ; sentinels with loaded 
musket and six rounds of ball-cartridges; general 
and division exercises of great guns and small arms, 
with artillery and infantry drills, were to be prose- 
cuted with increased diligence; and in navigating 
those seas attention was to be given more to pre- 
cautionary measures to secure safety than to accom- 
plish quick passages. Another general order stated 
that the countries which our ships were then about to 
visit were inhabited by a singular people, whose policy 
it had been, during more than two centuries, to de- 
cline all intercourse with strangers, to which end they 
had resorted to acts at variance and irreconcilable 
with the practices of civilized nations ; that one of 



102 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

the duties enjoined upon the commodore, was to en- 
deavor to overcome these prejudices by a course of 
friendly and conciliatory measures, and to strive to 
convince the Japanese that we went among them as 
friends, though assuring them of our determination 
never to submit to insult or wrong, or desist from 
claiming and securing those rights of hospitality 
justly due from one nation to another. In pursuance 
of these objects, every individual under his command 
should exercise the greatest prudence, forbearance, 
and discretion, in their intercourse with all with whom 
they came in contact. While distrustful of their ap- 
parent friendship and sincerity, and guarding against 
treachery, they would extend toward those oppressed 
and misgoverned people every kindness and protec- 
tion, and would be careful not to molest, injure, or 
maltreat them in any manner ; that it would be in 
time to resort to extreme measures when every friendly 
demonstration should have been exhausted. The 
commodore also stated that his instructions directed 
him to forbid in the most positive manner the accept- 
ance of presents or supplies, unless those who prof- 
fered them, were prepared to receive adequate returns. 
That we might be the better prepared, in addition 
to the great-gun exercises, drill, &c., when " friendly 
demonstrations should have been exhausted," the 
commander-in-chief provided himself with an octag- 
onal marquee made of red, white, and blue, caused 
ambulances to be made in the different ships, and di- 



THE LOO-CHOO ISLANDS. 103 

rected that all boats of the squadron when prepared 
for distant or active service, were to be armed and 
provided, so as to be ready at a sudden call, with 
anchor and cable, two spare oars, masts, sails, and 
rigging, spun-yarn and seizing stuff, four battle-axes, 
a hand-saw for each division, one wood-axe, spikes, bag 
with hatchet, sheet-lead and nails, spy-glass for com- 
manding ofiQcer of division, musket, pistol, and cutlass 
for each man, cartouch-box filled, screw-driver and 
nipple-wrench, cleaning rags and oil for each boat, a 
crow-bar, two blue-lights, two rockets, candles primed, 
and match-ropes in tin-box, lantern and materials for 
getting light, boat's colors and signals, compass, 
bread, water and provisions, oar-muffles, bandages and 
laudanum for wounded, lead-lines, small cooking ap- 
paratus for largest boat, flash-pans, and awnings. 

On getting to our anchorage we felt as if we had 
arrived at the outer door of the hermetic empire that 
we had come so far to deal with, we being then only 
about eight or nine days' sail from the bay of Yedo. 
As Loo-Choo had no doubt been selected as the base 
of operation, upon the principle of reaching the old 
hen by first going at the chickens, it will be as well 
to give an outline of its history. 

The Loo-Choo islands — pronounced in Japanese 
Lu Kiu — are a dependency of the Japanese prince 
of Satsuma. There are thirty-six islands in all, 
which are divided in three groups : the Northern or 
Sanbok, the Middle or Tchusauj and the Southern or 



104 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Sannan group. According to the belief of the inhab- 
itants, the origin of the people of these islands, like 
that of nearly all the orientals, is divine, and no- 
wise of the Lord Monboddo theory. Their annals 
always commence with a series of gods, then follow a 
race of demi-gods, and at last come human beingSo 
To their great veneration for their ancestors, may 
probably be ascribed these conceits. A son reveres 
his father beyond everything else ; this father likewise 
revered his progenitor. So the grandfather gets all 
the love of his son, with a large share of that of the 
grandson through the grandson's father. A thousand 
years in Loo-Choo chronology is a small matter : they 
note the existence of their islands for seventeen thou- 
sand years, that is agreeably to what the Chinaman 
would call their " fash ;" so compound interest for a 
thousand years in filial veneration gives divinity of 
origin to their nation. 

The Chinese emperor, Kang-hy, in 1719, sent a 
man of great attainments to Loo-Choo. The report of 
this learned pig-tail, upon what he saw in the coun- 
try, was translated by Father Gaubil of the French 
Jesuit mission in China, whose records probably con- 
tain more data relative to the ancient history of the 
East, than is to be found in any other mission. 

The Chinese histories first make mention of Loo- 
Choo in the year 605. Li that year a party of Chi- 
nese visited the islands, and on their return brought 
with them some of the natives, who were taken to 



LOO-CHOO — HISTORIC OUTLINE. 105 

Pekin. Here they were recognised as Loo-Chooans 
by the Japanese embassador at that court. They are 
described as being very ignorant and very poor. The 
emperor Yang-ti, however, sent embassadors and in- 
terpreters to claim sovereignty over the islands, but 
the king of Loo-Choo rejected all proposals of the 
kind, whereupon the emperor sent ten thousand men 
from Pokien to invade the islands. They landed on 
the island of Great Loo-Choo, and were bravely met 
by the king at the head of his army. A pitched bat- 
tle was fought, in which the king was slain, when the 
Chinese triumphed, taking five thousand prisoners, 
and sacking the cities of Sheudi and Napa. The Chi- 
nese chronicle the fact that the Loo-Chooans were so 
lamentably destitute that they did not even know the 
use of " chop-sticks !" and also state that they some- 
times sacrificed human beings at their religious festi- 
val, which barbarous custom was at once abolished. 

The Chinese emperors of the Ting dynasty, and 
also those of the succeeding Song dynasty, did not 
exercise sovereign rights over the islands. A. trade 
had sprung up between the two countries, and all 
went as well as a junk could sail, until 1291, when 
the emperor Chit-su, of the Eeven dynasty, resolved 
upon their conquest. He fitted out and despatched 
an armed expedition for this purpose, but the Tartars 
and Chinese, both disgusted and disheartened by the 
recollection of their terrible failure in a similar at- 
tempt on Japan, after a short absence returned to the 

5* 



106 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

port of Fokien, not having gone in sight of the islands. 
The history of the islands speaks of constant civil 
war, and bloody battles. In 1372 the largest island 
was divided into three kingdoms. Hong-u, the first 
of the Ming dynasty, sent an embassador to Loo- 
Choo, whose diplomacy was such as to induce T'say- 
too, one of the kings who resided at Sheudi, to declare 
himself tributary to China. His example was fol- 
lowed by the two other kings, and peace was restored. 
Thirty-six Chinese families, by order or with the 
consent of the emperor, emigrated to the island, who 
received their '^ quarter sections" from the king, and 
from that time dates the commencement of civilization 
and Chinese influence. Young men from Loo-Choo 
were annually sent to Nanking, to learn the Chinese 
language at the expense of the emperor ; and pres- 
ents were exchanged by the sovereigns. At the 
death of T'say-too the emperor sent his son to preside 
over the realm. Loo-Choo then became prosperous, 
trade sprang up ; and during the reign of Chang-pat- 
shi, the great grandson of T'say-too, the three king- 
doms of the islands were re-united, and the royal fam- 
ily assumed the title of Chang. 

Eevolutions and civil wars raged from time to time, 
and a feudal system was established. Commerce with 
China increased, and the Chinese complained of the 
scarcity of silver and copper coin in the provinces 
Tshe-kiang and Fokien, on account of the exporta- 
tion of it to Loo-Choo. In 1600, the Loo-Choo people 



TAICO SAMA. lOT 

sent a trading junk to Malacca, many to the island 
of Formosa, and a great many to the southern ports 
of Japan. During the reign of Chang-tching, Loo- 
Choo became the market where Japanese and Chi- 
nese merchants met to exchange their goods. Com- 
merce became brisk, and the constant quarrels be- 
tween the Chinese and Japanese gave the king an 
opportunity to extend his influence. The extensive 
piratical operations of the Japanese, about the year 
1525, having their headquarters at Ke-long-chan, on 
the island of Formosa, compelled the emperor of 
China to have recourse to the king of Loo-Choo as 
mediator between him and the emperor of Japan. 
The mediation did not suppress the piracy com- 
plained of, though backed by large squadrons sent to 
sea by the celestial emperor, to destroy the pirates, 
over whom his imperial confrere of Japan professed 
to have no control ; indeed, the Japan monarch 
alleged that there were many Chinese among these 
outlaws. 

The ascent of the throne of Japan by Taico Sama, 
proved an event of great importance. He was a man 
of great ability and shrewdness, and attained his 
high position by his own exertions, and not by birth. 
He put an end to feudalism in his country, and ruled 
with an iron hand. He conceived the idea of using 
to advantage the terror which prevailed because of 
the Japanese pirates, and the prestige which their 
daring acts had acquired. His ambition wm as un- 



108 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

bounded as his belief in manifest destiny, and his 
object was the conquest of China. He despatched 
officers to the king of Loo-Choo, ordering him to de- 
clare his kingdom tributary to Japan ; and similar 
pressing invitations were sent to the governors of the 
Philippine islands, the king of Siam, &c. The sover- 
eign of Loo-Ohoo temporized, and finally refused to 
submit, relying on Chinese protection. Ho informed 
the emperor of the plans of Taico Sama ; a league of 
all these princes was formed against him, when Taico 
Sama invaded that fighting-ground between the Chi- 
nese and Japanese — the peninsula of Corea. Taico's 
main object was attained. He reaped all the benefit 
proceeding from piracies licensed by him or enlisted 
in his service, and thus giving it the character of a 
regular warfare. He smothered civil war in its 
germ, and sent away his most influential opponents 
to fight in the Corea, not Crimea. Corea was then 
the safety-valve for ardent spirits against the govern- 
ment, as France keeps its Algiers, or keeps up a 
foreign war. Taico ^'savaad" a great deal. 

During the reign of Taico, Loo-Choo suffered se- 
verely ; trade was brought to a stand still, and, like 
a more modern nation that Americans wot of, Japan 
proclaimed herself mistress of the sea. The king of 
the islands, however, managed to send an embassador 
to China, who was received with great magnificence by 
the emperor, both on account of the dangers he had 
encountered from the voyage in the junk, and the risk 



FAMINE AND PESTILENCE. 109 

incurred of falling into the hands of the pirates who 
swarmed in those seas. 

After the death of Taico, and during the regency 
of lyeyas for his son, in 1612, a Loo-Chooan chief, 
dissatisfied with his king, armed three thousand men 
in Japan, with whom he returned to his own country 
and made the kingdom by force tributary to Japan, 
that is, to the province of Satsuma. He took back 
the king a prisoner. The fallen sovereign of Loo- 
Choo behaved with so much dignity, that two years 
afterward he was generously sent back, and reinsta- 
ted on his throne, remaining still a true friend to the 
emperor of China. 

Commercial relations, but on a small scale, existed 
with China and Japan, when, in 1708, all the plagues 
came down on Loo-Choo : it was desolated by the 
ravages of terrible typhoons ; the crops failed ; cat- 
tle died ; the king's palace was entirely consumed by 
fire ; and frightful epidemics prevailed among the 
natives. Cang-hi, the emperor of China, sent them 
assistance, and his embassador, Supas Kang, in his 
report, according to the translation in French, says 
the language o-f these people is so mixed up of Chi- 
nese and Jaj)anese, that it forms almost a distinct 
language. He finds no wild animals or venomous 
reptiles or insects, but much fish. Their exports at 
that time consisted of sulphur, a peculiar red dye stuff, 
dried fish, saki, and timber, principally cedar-wood. 

The prospect, as you approach Great Loo-Choo 



110 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

island, clothed in masses of deep green, is very delight- 
ful to the eye, after it has been resting for days on 
the slate-colored ocean. We reached our anchorage 
late in the afternoon in the midst of a heavy rain, on 
the 26th of May. The roadstead off the city of Napa 
is enclosed by large fields of coral, and the entrances 
through the reefs are quite narrow. When we had 
gotten inside, large numbers of the natives appeared 
on the shore, no doubt greatly astonished at the sight 
of the two large steamers ; and shortly after, the sloop- 
of-war '' Saratoga," from Hong Kong, also arrived. 
In a short time a rude dug-out boat came off to our 
ship, containing some officer, but as the flag-ship had 
previously made signal forbidding any communication 
with shore, he was directed to that ship — now the 
Susquehanna. He wished to know what we wanted 
in their harbor; the answer to this was, ''Ask no 
questions and I'll tell you," &c. He was given to 
understand that he was rather too ''small pigeon" 
for our commodore to see, and that he must go back 
and send off their "first chop" mandarin, as we could 
hold no intercourse with any other. This was trying 
on the dignitate early, but nothing else will answer 
in the East ; any concession of equality, or manifesta- 
tion of too great courtesy, would be at once construed 
by them into an admission of their superiority. 

Our stripes and stars were a new sight to them, 
and the sudden advent of our ships in their waters 
was more than they could comprehend. At night 



LOO-CHOOAN SIMPLICITY. Ill 

their chief men took counsel together, and came to 
the conclusion that we were in want of kam-yum- 
muru, or something to eat ; so the next morning off 
came, in a string of canoes, bullocks, pigs, chickens, 
and vegetables, as presents. These were sent back 
with the information that we could not receive pres- 
ents. Become quite uneasy about our presence, they 
consented to their prince regent's coming off to the 
flag-ship, which he did at an appointed hour, with a 
suite in their canoes. He was well received, and 
given the cheap salute of three guns, which small 
compliment he would have preferred to dispense 
with. They were shown over the ship : the en- 
gines were moved for their observation, and they 
evinced immense surprise : some of the attendants, 
however, when the great pistons moved, bolted up 
the hatchway and made for their boats. The higher 
officers were quite dignified in appearance and de- 
meanor, but the lower class showed a simplicity most 
childish. They giggled at a looking-glass, and con- 
tinually felt behind it ; a sight through a spy-glass 
was most puzzling; a wine-glass they held tightly 
with both hands, and elevated to the forehead before 
tasting contents ; a watch was most miraculous, and 
as they gathered round they were all wonderment, 
and imitated its " tick tick ;" when the works were 
exposed to them, their exclamation of surprise was 
more like one of pain. The contents of the purser's 
chest when exposed to them they seemed to think quite 



112 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

shiny and pretty, but evidently were unaware of the 
value or use of eagles, dollar-pieces, &g. On a chart 
of the world, in the cabin one day, I showed a num- 
ber of them their country, and then designating my 
own, traced the track by which we had come to their 
island, which they appeared to comprehend. It was 
quite amusing to see the rapidity with which they 
would let go the polar handles of a small galvanic 
battery, which much persuasion and the example of 
some of the men were first required to get them to 
take hold of, as soon as it was slightly charged by 
pushing in the needles. They would drop their hands 
and rub their wrists in amazement. 

The dress of the Loo-Chooans consists of a loose 
gown reaching to the knees, with large sleeves, made 
of a species of grass-cloth, of their own manufacture, 
and confined at the waist with a wide sash, pendent 
from which they wear a tobacco-pouch and small pipe. 
After the interchange of salutations, the pipe is al- 
ways produced. On their feet, which are generally 
bare, they wear a coarse straw sandal, secured by a 
strap passing through next to the great toe, and one 
around the instep. Like the Japanese, the better 
classes carry a fan ; but only the high officers wear a 
hat, made of crape, the first class yellow, and the 
second red — more particularly as a badge of author- 
ity. Their hair is brushed up all around the head, 
and its ends secured in a knot on the summit of the 
head, transfixed by silver or brass pins. 



DK. BETTELHEIM. 113 

We knew that Loo-Choo had been visited in 1846 
by a French missionary, Forcade, who had subse- 
quently left, but were rather surprised on anchoring 
abreast of a tall and singular formation, called in the 
surveys of the " Alceste and Lyra," " Capstan rock,'' 
but which more nearly resembles a large old barn, 
with dark thatched roof, and huge projecting eaves 
— to see flying from its summit the English flag. "We 
afterward ascertained that it was a flag giving pro- 
tection to Dr. Bettelheim, a converted Hungarian Jew, 
who had married an English lady, and had been sent by 
an English naval mission society, some seven years be- 
fore, as a missionary to Loo-Choo. He did not appear 
to be a man whose disposition and temperament were 
calculated to afi'ord him success in his labors, although 
he had persevered in his study of their language until 
he could preach to the natives in it, and had occupied 
his lonely position for years, with no other Christian 
faces than those of his wife and three children. The 
Loo-Chooans had tried every way to get lid of him ; 
they had addressed, through the Chinese, to the Eng- 
lish minister. Lord Palmerston, remonstrances against 
the mission, which invariably closed with the petition 
that he would remove Bettelheim. They may not 
have known Vattel, but they urged with much energy 
his doctrine, that a missionary should leave a country 
when his presence was not agreeable to its people. 
But the Dr. held his ground, though he was made to 
undergo some rather rough treatment. Himself;, by 



ll-t THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

his professional skill in the healing art, and his wife, 
during the prevalence of the small-pox, had been very 
attentive to the people, which caused the authorities 
to become quite jealous. They were followed and 
hooted at in the streets, and finally, Mrs. B. during a 
walk, was forcibly separated from her husband, and 
himself beaten. The British war-steamer " Sphynx" 
happened to pay a visit to Napa not long afterward, 
when the authorities made ample apology for the of- 
fence, and promised better things in future. They 
removed his servants, or constantly changed them. 
They erected spy -houses opposite the gate of his resi- 
dence, which were constantly attended. If he preached 
to a crowd in the street, or market-place, at a signal 
from the Japanese police on the island, his auditors 
all ran away. If he distributed tracts in their lan- 
guage at night, the next morning, the police brought 
them back to him, carefully tied up. 

They were much disturbed by our presence, and if 
our sails were loosened to dry, they wondered why 
we did not sail away. We made a reconnoissance of 
their harbor to ascertain or confirm the accuracy of 
tlie surveys of Beechy, and the flag, or station staffs, 
we erected on shore for this purpose, around which 
numbers would gather, sorely perplexed them. 

The principal town of Napa, containing about twenty 
thousand inhabitants, is located behind the rising beach, 
and can not be seen well from the shipping. Its kiang^ 
or river, forms a harbor for junks from China, Japan, 



OUR RECEPTION. 115 

and their coasting trade, and small boats only. The 
houses of the town which are low, are enclosed in 
walls of Cyclopean masonry, built mostly without any 
cement, of coral rock. Over these the limbs of the 
banyan project, and they are mostly fringed on top 
by a growth of cactus. The entrances to their dwel- 
lings are from narrow alleys running from the streets, 
and concealed by an abrupt elbow turn, so unless you 
notice close, you will scarcely observe the doorway. 
The streets are narrow, and laid out like those of 
Peking, and unpaved, and the reception that we met with 
on walking them, was anything but sociable ; not that 
the mass of the people, who, after getting a little over 
the trepidation which our unexpected arrival produced, 
were not inclined to be friendly, but because of the 
surveillance of their suspicious and jealous officials. 
On our approach the shops were closed, and the way 
in front entirely deserted, while as soon as you had 
passed, there was a great throng gazing at you from 
the rear. Those weaving in the open air with their 
rude looms seizing their children did flee . Old women , 
awfully ugly, with tattoed hands, hair piled on their 
heads like a .greasy mop, invested with a single salt- 
sack-looking garment of exceeding brevity, if you 
came upon them would betake themselves to flight, 
leaving the sharks' meat, or vegetables, which they 
might have for sale, in the market-place, or else bury 
their faces in their dirty bluish tattoed hands, and so 
remain until you had^ passed. We were forced to 



116 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

conclude that our presence was as moving as that of 
Mr. Nicodemus in the Spectre Bridegroom ; or else 
that an American naval officer, if he caused those old 
sycoraxes to shun him, must be ugly enough to scare 
a horse from his oats. 

The origin of the married women tattoeing their 
hands, according to Loo-Chooan story literally ren- 
dered, is this : A husband going on a journey had 
an agreement with his wife for three years, but con- 
trary to the agreement, ten years passed before his 
return. Her parents repeatedly proposed that she 
should change, and marry again, but she earnestly 
defended her chastity, saying, '' A woman should not 
marry two husbands !" Still gainsaying, with blows 
they were forcing her to marry. She invented a 
stratagem — she painted her fingers with ink; she 
spoiled her beauty. Hence it must be, they say, that 
all women on marrying tattoe their hands. 

In our walks we always had the unsolicited company 
of some government deputies. If you motioned them 
about anything, they were exceedingly addicted to 
salaaming, by bowing and raising their hands to their 
heads, but they remained exactly where they were. 
A rare and beautiful flower attracted your attention, 
and you wished to look closer at it, your attendant 
functionary pantomimically trusts that you will not 
enter, but passing through the gate, or scaling the 
coral wall, in a few minutes he will present you with 
one of the novel flowers. Should one of your company 



TRYING THE LANGUAGE. 117 

accidentally or intentionally slip out of the sight of 
these impromptu attendants, they appear most mentally 
troubled till he reappears. 

The policy pursued with these people was a mild 
but firm one. They were asked for a house on shore 
that might be used as a place for our sick to recruit. 
They declined ; and a few days after one of our offi- 
cers and some men occupied one of their buildings in 
the town of Tumai, divided from Napa by a small 
stream. This building had been used as a kind of 
town-hall, where the chiefs assembled in council, car- 
ried thither in sedan-chairs, encased in ratan lattices, 
and swung from a pole resting on the shoulders of 
two serfs. The honesty of the natives was shown in 
the security of clothes and everything else that might 
be left out ; even a boat's anchor lost, and found by 
them, was returned to this place, though they kept a 
spy upon its American inmates night and day. Here, 
while dining with the young officer in charge, I 
" tried on," with some of the more intelligent na- 
tives, sentences in their language, from a vocabulary 
which had been prepared for him, and with which he 
had been able to negotiate for his daily supply of 
chow-chow, and eatables for some of the ships. " Cha 
tooti kwoo" — tea bring to me ; and " Midzoo tooti 
kwoo" — water bring to me ; and similar simple sen- 
tences they understood readily ; but the attempt at 
more complicate ones, in which the vowel sound is 
dropped, rather awoke their risibles. 



118 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

The authorities sent off protests against the further 
occupancy of the house at Tumai, and requested that 
we would vacate it. They stated it was the place 
they had for assembling ; it was the only place they 
had for meeting together to debate their local affairs, 
and it was also the place where their young were 
taught. They also took the opportunity of mention- 
ing that the fertility of their island was not equal to 
the wants of its population ; and that every draft 
upon them for live-stock, &c., was an oppression. In 
this there was obvious dissimulation ; because they 
sent away to other countries a good deal of the prod- 
uce of their land, and a great deal as tribute, while 
we paid well for whatever we got. The commodore 
had notified them of his intention of going up to their 
capital, Sheudi, distant some four miles from the an- 
chorage, to pay his respects to the prince-regent at 
the palace ; they did not covet the honor ; they trusted 
he would not confer it. 

Not far from Tumai are a number of the native 
tombs, beautifully located on green hill- sides. They 
are large, built in the form of a horse-shoe, with a ce- 
mented dome fronted by a little court, into which you 
descend by a flight of stone steps, and are kept 
whitened with great assiduity by the surviving rela- 
tives. The most attractive and romantic spots are 
chosen for their location. Their reverence and care 
for the homes of the dead, may well put to the blush. 



BURIAL-PLACES FOR STRANGERS. 119 

the wickedness of Christian communities who make 
streets through graves and graveyards. 

In a grove of pines, at Tumai, not far from the 
landing-place, is a secluded spot, which appears to 
have been set aside for the interment of foreigners. 
Our ships buried some of our men and one officer 
there. As soon as the graves are closed the author- 
ities cause them to be well built over, without charge, 
in a parallelogram, with coral rock and cement, 
leaving an inclination toward the feet that the rain 
may run oflF. Any inscription that the friends please, 
may either be imbedded in the masonry or erected at 
the head, which will be respected and preserved by 
the natives. On copper plates, tacked on wooden 
crosses at the end of some of these tombs, I read : — 

-" Wm. Hares, seaman in his Britannic majesty's 
ship, ' Alceste,' aged 21 years, lies buried here, Octo- 
ber 16th, 1816. This monument was erected by the 
king and inhabitants of this most hospitable island." 

"Vive Jesus; f vive sa croix: Ci-Git Calland 
(Pierre Juler), second chirurgien a bord de la cor- 
vette de Roi la Victoriense ; mort a bord le 16th Sep- 
tembre, 1846." 

" Ci-Git Le Corps Du R'd Mathieu Adnet, Pere 
Miss're Apostolique, Freres du Japon, Decede le hier 
J'et, 1848." 

The Loo-Chooan manner of making salt is peculiar. 
They clear acres of ground in the vicinity of the 
water, and make it as level as possible. During the 



120 • THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

extreme heat of the day men contmue to throw into 
the air, that it may descend on this level space, ladles 
full of salt-water. Partial crystallization is thus pro- 
duced, which unites with the sand under foot, which, 
being allowed to dry, is piled up aside, and afterward 
the saline matter is washed from it, filtered through 
straw into earthern vessels, and then evaporated by 
heat. On these level places our marine, and boat- 
howitzer divisions were usually landed for drilling 
purposes. 

You see no wheeled vehicles on the island, and one ^ 
in the shape of an ambulance-cart which the commo- 
dore had built, and once ashore there, is, no doubt, 
the first that a Lpo-Chooan ever looked on. Small 
horses, with their untrimmed fetlocks, are the only 
means of conveyance from the junks to the interior, of 
whatever little merchandise they now Qonsume. The 
load is placed on a rude saddle secured by girth and 
a crupper of rope ei\veloped in bamboo-rollers like 
strung necklace ; and the bridle, with its head-stall 
of rope, has two small pieces of wood passing on 
either side of the nostrils of the horse, with a cord 
through them, by which be is controlled in place of 
a bit. < , 

On the 6th of June, the commodore, with a suite 
of officers, determined on paying an official visit to 
the prince-regent, at his palace at Sheudi — a visit 
which the authorities had vainly endeavored to get 
indefinitely postponed. They did not understand 



VISIT TO THE REGENT. 121 

these attentions : stretching wide their hands, they 
said '' America was a great nation ; while Loo-Choo 
was no larger than the points of the fingers scarcely 
separated — what does America want with Loo-Choo ?" 
The escort, when landed and formed at Tumai, con- 
sisted of two companies of marines in full dress— to 
whom, for some purpose or other, six rounds of ball- 
cartridges had been issued per man — -two brass 
pieces and fixed ammunition, manned by sailors, and 
two full bands from the Susquehanna and Mississippij 
while in front were three tall fellows carrying the 
American ensign. The rear was brought up by ser- 
vants carrying some presents consisting of arms and 
calicoes sewed up in red cloth, ajid olhers with chow- 
chow basket's. The march was over a well-paved and 
* graded road of coral rock. First we passed over a 
large terrace overhung by- enormous banyan-trees, 
which fronted a very, thick arched wall enclosing a 
temple and the tomb of some of the royal family. A 
tablet standing on a large pedestal near the step of 
this terrace, in native characters, warns the peasantry 
that when the sedan of any high functionery rests 
here, that the lower classes must take the road to the 
right. Sometimes we passed sugar-cane growing on 
"one side of the road, and on the other , ingeniously- 
irrigated paddy-fields were waving in green rice. The 
road then ascended by a grade of about seven degrees, 
quite a high ridge, from which the extended prospect 
of cultivation was very fine indeed. The sun came 

6 



122 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

down hot, though at times we walked under the shade 
of thick and pretty bamboo-hedges. The sight was 
a rare one to the peasantry ; some, attracted by the 
music and the novelty of uniform, left their work in 
the fields and ran to the eminences on the roadside, 
then others were alarmed and bolted ; one fellow I 
saw jump into a muddy stream, swim for it, and not 
look back until he stood on the other side. 

We reached the street leading to the palace-grounds 
about twelve o'clock. This was a wide one of nicely- 
rolled gravel, and on either side were walls of much 
height and thickness, showing smcfoth and expensive 
masonry. In marching along this approach, we passed 
under three roofed and detached gateways, built at 
intervals across it. They had three distinct entrances, 
the widest being in the centre, over which a red sign, 
with Japanese characters in gilt, had this announce- 
ment : '^ This is a small island, but observes the rules 
of propriety ; distinguished persons will pass through 
the centre opening, otherswill go through those at 
the sides." 

On arriving at the main gate of the palace, a num- 
ber of the chiefs, in their yellow and red caps, were 
there to receive us. Leaving the escort outside, the 
commodore and suite of ofiScers entered, and after 
passing through successive courts, and up stone' steps 
alternately to the right and left, at a considerable 
elevation from the street, the party was ushered into 
the hall of audience. Here were a number of yellow 



LOO-CHOOAN FEAST. 123 

and red-capped chiefs assembled. Chairs and tables 
for each one of the guests were placed, and pipes, 
tea, and cakes, with lacquered chop-sticks, served. 
When the regent — quite an old man, with long, white 
beard — entered, with his councillors, he advanced 
and saluted the commodore half way, insisting on 
rank or equality. The interview was a short one ; 
compliments were interchanged through Dr. Bettel- 
heim and Mr. S. W. Williams of Canton, when the 
regent was invited aboard of the Susquehanna, when 
she should return to Napa, after a contemplated ab- 
sence of twelve days. The presents were then left in 
the middle of the floor, and the visiting party retired. 
On reaching the street we were conducted to a large 
hall in another part of the ground, where a feast had 
been prepared for us, set out upon black lacquered 
tables. The first course consisted of soups, of which 
there were nearly a dozen different kinds furnished 
in succession, in small cup-bowls, with porcelain spoons. 
There was nearly every kind from egg-soup to " bird's- 
nest." The solids were pleasant to the taste but 
rather suspicious in appearance, among which were 
slices of hard-boiled eggs, so colored as to resemble 
sections of the uncooked tomato. Finding that we 
were not able to make any progress with the black 
lacquered chop-sticks which had been distributed at 
each one's place, they furnished us with little sharpened 
pieces of oak, with the aid of which we did full jus- 
tice to our hosts. 



124 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

After strange-looking cakes had been brought, tea 
removed, and pipes handed, very small porcelain cups 
were placed, and our honorable red-cap attendants, 
who according to their custom, wait themselves upon 
their guests, kept them continually filled with saki 
from silver vessels shaped like tea-pots. This was 
the first taste we had of this colorless, celebrated 
Japanese national beverage. It was pleasant to the 
taste, and yet the after-math was not ; it had some of 
the gout of champagne, and then it was turnipy. 
Buckingham might be on the seas, and then the seas 
might be on him ; but a man could scarcely be con- 
sidered '^ in his cups" though a hundred cups were in 
him of saki. Nor could he exclaim with Palstaff 
that the villain had put lime in his '' sack," (did 
Shakespeare know Japanese ?) — because the thimble- 
sized tankard would not admit of it. 

The commodore, through the interpreter, toasted 
the queen and young prince, and hoped Loo-Chooan 
man and American man would always be friends. 
The chiefs of course salaamed considerably to this 
sentiment, but I am quite dubious whether they did 
not regard it as an indication of closer proximity with 
these Americans, who might disturb at a future day 
the nolli me tangere doctrines of their country. 

The feast over, the column of escort was again 
formed, and making the march down to Tumai, in less 
time than up to Sheudi, by four o'clock, all were aboard 
of their respective ships. 



SHEUDT. 125 

No more beautiful place than Sheudi, so far as ver- 
dure, elevated situation, and attractive foliage, is con- 
cerned. Our officers took many a tramp up there, 
and always with pleasure. At cool springs well cared 
for they could slake their thirst ; under enormous trees 
they could pic-nic or siesta if they chose, and after- 
ward bathe in a walled lake all covered over 
with trees. What would the palace-grounds, the 
Komooe of Sheudi, be worth in this country ? — no more 
baronial domain in England. Should you have gone 
unprovided with chow-chow on these excursions, stop 
at a road-side Kunkwa^ usually adjoining some place 
of worship, and the occupants will promptly give you 
tea and cakes, and the examination of your strange 
costume, and sage queries about your ship, is their re- 
ward for their entertainment. If it should rain dur- 
ing your walk, request one of your unbidden native 
officer associates to procure a papyrus parasol. 

There are many things to interest an antiquarian 
taste, and provoke conjecture, about Loo-Choo. At 
Napa there are stone-statues, eight feet high, quite 
well executed, of their " far-seeing God" — there are 
causeways of stone, breakwaters, forts constructed 
with good engineering, and well designed and located 
for defence, though now entirely disarmed ; and you 
pass over well-arched bridges, with neatly-cut stone 
balustrading, and in fine state of preservation. The 
palace at Sheudi is a perfect fortress in wall and 
situation, and in determined hands would laugh 



126 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

at a siege of many days. When were these built? 
— when were these. forts disarmed? As Basil Hall 
told Napoleon at St. Helena, in speaking of this 
island, there are point de fusils there now. The in- 
vocation of the Ethiopic song, '^ Rise, old Napa^ rise !" 
would be now of no avail. 

Although a line of steamers from our Pacific coast 
to Shanghae, China, on the arc of a great circle, 
would come nowhere nigh the group known as the 
Benin islands to the northeast of Loo-Choo, yet the 
commodore still deemed it best to make a hasty re- 
connoissance of the harbor of Port Lloyd, which had 
been surveyed some years ago by the English, who 
claim sovereignty over Peel island by right of posses- 
sion, though it can be proven that it was first per- 
manently settled by an American, or one owing al- 
legiance to our country ; but as the whole policy 
of our government has been opposed to foreign colonial 
possession, there is scarcely any chance of there being 
any dispute about it. Mr. English, under-secretary 
of state for foreign affairs, may make himself com- 
fortable. 

On the 9th of June the Susquehanna, with the 
^ sloop-of-war Saratoga in tow, took their departure, 
leaving the Mississippi, and storeship Supply in 
the harbor. A few days afterward the Plymouth 
arrived from north China, bringing us papers con- 
taining an account of the presidential inauguration. 

The Susquehanna and the Saratoga reached Peel 



1 



THE BONIN ISLANDS. 127 

island, after a pleasant passage., on the 14th. After a 
stay there of four days, during which the commodore 
sent parties of officers to explore the island, put a 
quantity of live stock ashore in the custody of some 
American residents at Port Lloyd, and also purchased 
an eligible lot for the government, should it ever 
hereafter be required, for a coal depot, the ships re- 
turned to Napa, bringing with them fish and turtle. 
They ascertained that some twenty whalers had 
stopped at the island during the year for refreshments. 
A parcel of long-nosed porkers turned loose by ships 
passing, can only be reached by the aid of the rifle ; 
but some of the officers who took a crack at them, 
facetiously spoke in their letters to the United States 
of their hunting the wild boar. 

Von Siebold, in his history of the discoveries in the 
Japan seas, says the Bonin islands were first put 
down on a map published by the Dutch hydrographer, 
Ortelius, in 1670, and are reported as having been 
discovered in 1643, by Bernardo de Torres, who 
named them Malonbrigo de los Hermanos. They 
were visited in 1696 by Captain Linschaten, of the 
Dutch East India Company, and are on the map by 
Hondries in 1634. A few years after they were 
visited by Captains Quast and Tasman of the same 
company, who were in search of the Gen and Ken, or 
Gold and Silver islands. These navigators deter- 
mined their position with admirable accuracy. Men- 
tion is made of them by Vris and Schaef, of the Dutch 



128 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

East India Company in 1643. In 1650 on the map of 
Jansomous, and in 1680 by Van Kenlen. By later au- 
thorities they are omitted, and reappear on charts in 
the following century as discovered by the Spanish 
Admiral Cabrera Bueno, and are called Islas del 
Arzobispo. 

The Japanese history in the book San-kok-tou-ran- 
to-sito, mentions these islands as discovered between 
1592 and 1595. In 1675 a Japan exploring expedi- 
tion, specially authorized by the emperor, sailed from 
Simoda, then an imperial and customhouse port, 
for the Bonin islands. They were named by the 
Japanese the Munin Sima, and reported as fit to be 
settled, and the importance of doing so was urged. 
The Japanese counted more than eighty small rock 
islands. In 1826 they were visited by an American 
whaler. Captain Coffin ; in 1827, by the Russian ad- 
miral, Lutke ; and in 1828, by Capt. Beechy of the En- 
glish navy. The inhabitants at Port Lloyd, on Peel 
island, are about forty in number ; on the Bailey or 
Coffin group, there are living two families. Nearly all 
these people are runaway sailors from whaleships, who 
have obtained wives from the Kanakas of the Sand- 
wich islands, and so far as their nationality is con- 
cerned, the Americans predominate. The oldest 
settler at Port Lloyd is Nathaniel Sarary, who acts as 
mayor of the place, and carries out their self-made 
laws and regulations with the assistance of two elders 
elected by a majority. 



FOURTH OF JULY AT SEA. 129 

As long as the Dutch held their fort Zeelandia, on 
Formosa, its position and possession gave them great 
advantages in the eyes of the Japanese, but its cap- 
ture, after a prolonged siege, by the Chinese pirate 
chief Coshinga, had a very injurious effect with the 
Japanese, diminishing their prestige and weakening 
belief in their naval supremacy. It is quite desirable 
to know the future prospects of the Benin islands. 
The adventitious aid of their possession would prove 
of great advantage in a trade with Japan, being only 
a distance of two days' steaming from Yedo. 

On the 2d of July the squadron got under way for 
the bay of Yedo, Japan, the " Susquehanna" towing 
the " Saratoga," and the '' Mississippi" towing the 
*^ Plymouth." The store-ship '^ Supply" was left at 
the anchorage, no doubt greatly to the regret of the 
natives, who, gazing from the beach on our departure, 
hoped that they would not see us again. 

We rounded the southern end of the island with a 
heavy swell on, the southwest monsoon prevailing at 
the time, and were soon heading up the Pacific. 

Our patriotic remembrance of the return of our great 
national anniversary was ahead of the people of our 
own native land ; or is it the " Fourth of July" to an 
American, until the sun of that day has illumined for- 
est, stream, and home, in his own country ? At mid- 
day then of our '^ Fourth," when it was yet but eleven 
o'clock at night of the third, in the United States,, the 
large old steamers, and the sailing-vessels in their 

6* 



130 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

tow, going dead to windward, dressed with our na- 
tional ensigns, in latitude 28° 36^ north, and longi- 
tude 130° 42' east, running nearly abreast, fired sev- 
enteen guns each, in honor of the day ; and the 
''main-brace" being ordered to be spliced, ''Jack" 
had the opportunity of remembering it in a tot of 
grog. 

The next day, by signal from flag-ship, anchor- 
buoys were ordered to be made of empty casks, the 
men were exercised with small arms at target-firing, 
and ship's company exercised at general and fire 
quarters, previous to arriving at our port of destina- 
tion. 

A believer in omens would have had an opportunity 
of indulging his credulity, and interpreting, if he 
could, the meaning of a remarkable meteor which shot 
athwart the sky on the morning of the 6th of July, 
and was visible from the decks of the ships, when in 
two days' run of the bay of Yedo. It appeared as 
large in circumference as the crown of a man's hat. 
Its body was of the brilliancy and color of molten 
iron, and glowed as if heated by incandescence, emit- 
ting all the while sparks which trailed backward in 
its passage, like barbs of arrows. Its tail was of a 
bluish transparency, which extended into an emerald- 
green hue, terminating in a fiery, smoky bulb, resem- 
bling the flame of burning tar. When first noticed, it 
seemed to shoot upward from a line on a level with 
our quarter-hammock netting, in the southwest, and 



A METEOR. 131 

80 near did it appear to the ship, that for an instant 
it was imagined to be a rocket from the sloop-of-war 
Plymouth— at the time in tow of us— and designed 
to attract our attention. In its passage through the 
heavens, which occupied the time in which one miglit 
count thirty, it described a parabolic curve, illumin- 
ating as it went our hurricane-deck and wheel-houses 
with astonishing clearness, and on reaching a point 
nearly due north, occupied by a bank of dull roseate 
cloud, it burst like a rocket and disappeared, leaving 
those who had the good fortune to see it uttering ex- 
clamations of admiration and wonderment, and a 
rather credulous corporal of marines who happened 
to be going his rounds at the time, willing to take 
his " corporal" oath that the brilliant body started 
within a few yards of our rail. The heat of the day 
preceding was very great. 

Next day, being near the insular empire, target 
practice was continued ; old cartridges drawn, guns 
loaded and shotted, and preparations made for re- 
moving the forward-rail for the clear working of our 
bow-guns. 



182 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION- 



CHAPTER VIII. 

When day broke on the morning of the 8th July 
we got our first sight of the '^ terra incognita^ ^ — the 
hermetic land — the land which had been invaded but 
never conquered— hence called the " virgin empire." 
The high, bold shores of Japan were before us — the 
" kingdom of the origin of the sun.'' 

Japan has been continually spoken of as the un- 
known land. It is difficult to see with what correct- 
ness this designation should have been given it, un- 
less those countries only are known upon which the 
physical eye of some numbers may have rested. 
Taking the extant information at command, it can 
very properly be said, with Macfarlane, that we 
" know more of the Japanese than we knew of the 
Turks a hundred years ago ;" and he might have 
added, than other nations knew of America, though 
discovered half a century earlier than Japan. 

The works on the country are numerous ; among 
them those of the Jesuits, and the German and Swe- 
dish medical officers of the Dutch prison factory at 
Dezima. The printed data of the former, and the 



WORKS ON JAPAN. 138 

archives of the Jesuit headquarters at Rome and 
at other places, could furnish the earliest and most 
thorough information. "Les Lettres Edifiantes et Cu- 
rieuses,^^ or the pages of Charlevoix, which tell of 
the labors of the Jesuit pioneer missionary in Japan, 
Francis Xavier, — make it anything but an unknown 
land. 

Then there are the books, whose size might well 
deter the stoutest, but whose pages would well repay 
the industrious search of the inquirer — the product 
of the close observation and assiduous notation of 
Koempfer,* Thunberg, Siebold ; and the Dezima Op- 
perhoofds — Titsinghe, DoefF, Meylan, and Warehouse 
Master Fischer, in lesser size; the quaint accoiir.ts 
of old William Adams, pilot, and Captain Saris, Eng- 
lishmen ; the work of the Russian Golownin, as far 
as he could gather information, while undergoing his 
hard but perhaps justly retributive imprisonment in 
Matsmai ; the works of Sir Stamford Rafles ; Reports 

^ The work of Koempfer, to which reference, as to Japanese history, 
is frequently made, singular to say, was never written by him. It 
was written by one Camphay, governor-general of the Dutch East 
Indies, and at one time the superintendent of the trade in Japan. 
The manuscript was only given to Koempfer to bring home, and to 
place it in the archives of the Dutch East India Company at Amster- 
dam ; but instead of complying with the trust, he took the pages with 
him to Germany, and kept them until he died. After his death, 
more than a century ago, a friend of his named Scheuchzer, residing 
in London, went immediately to Germany, procured the manuscript, 
and it was first published in Great Britain in English, and subse- 
quently translated into other languages. 



134 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

of the East India Company ; the pages of the Asiatic 
Journal, &c. 

With such sources of information as these, it would 
be a piece of affectation to suppose the majority of the 
reading community without some knowledge of the 
early and past history of Japan ; but for such as may 
possibly have not given it any attention, it may be 
well to give a hurried glance at the early history of 
the country, as derived from compilations of the be- 
fore-cited authorities, and also down to the condition 
of the empire at the time of our visit — which is to be 
found in a fine synoptical article which appeared some 
time since in a foreign Quarterly Review — without 
further acknowledgment. 

Well, then, to begin with the mythological. As- 
the Japanese have it, their origin was superhuman, 
and their primitive history is in this wise : From 
primeval chaos arose a self-created supreme God, 
throned in the highest heaven, to whom, with some 
brevity, is given the name, Ameno-mi-naka-nusimo- 
kami. What then existed of a universe was governed 
by seven celestial gods who next arose. The last of 
these, not admiring the celibacy of his predecessors, 
with whom the goddesses had dwelt as sisters, took 
unto himself a wife. The marital state, it appears, 
had the effect of awakening his latent energy, and one 
day he said to his spouse : " There should be some- 
where a habitable earth ; let us seek it under the 
waters that are boiling beneath us." 



JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY. 185 

Like Ithuriel, he possessed a spear, and thrusting 
it into the waters he then withdrew it. The drops 
which fell from the spear — which, perhaps, was weep- 
ing the puncture which he had given the aqueous 
element — like the tears of Niobe, became solidified, 
and thus came into existence the present insulated 
empire. 

Others, however, not having the fear of Japanese 
gods before their eyes, have a perverseness in the be- 
lief, that the receding waters of the deluge left bare 
Japan, or that it may have been since upheaved by 
volcanic action from the mighty deep. 

The Adam of Japan was Ten Sio Dai Dsin. From 
him sprang the nation ; though Syn Mou is repre- 
sented as the founder of the empire. The physical 
conformation of the Japanese indicates their Mongolian 
origin. 

The geography of the Japanese kingdom is included 
in a string of islands on the northeast coast of Asia, 
not far distant from the main land, commencing with 
the Kurile islands, a portion of which the empire ex- 
ercises sovereignty over, and extending to the straits 
of Van Diemen on the south. The islands and unin- 
habited rocks are said to comprise three thousand 
eight hundred and fifty ; but Japan of the present day 
is understood to include Yezo, Niphon, Kew Sew, and 
Sikok ; among which the principal is Niphon, Nipon, 
Zipon, Zipango, or Cipango, by which names it has 
been called indifferently. It was for " Cipango" that 



136 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Columbus sailed from Palos, and from the masthead of 
the " Pinto" the western world was first descried in 
1492. Exactly fifty years afterward, Pinto^ a Portu- 
guese first descried '^ Cipango/' — '^ the kingdom of 
the origin of the sun." 

The authentic history of Japan commences in 66O5 
B. C, with the first mortal ruler, surnamed the " Di- 
vine Conqueror." In Niphon he built him a dairi^ or 
temple-palace dedicated to the sun goddess. From 
him all the mikados^ or sovereigns, claim to descend. 

These self-styled divine rulers, from ceasing to 
command their armies, and intrusting military com- 
mands to kinsmen and others, came to abdicating so 
early, that the heirs of their power were still mere 
infants. These infants fell into the custody of others, 
who loved them about as well as the Duke of Gloster 
did those of his brothers he had conveyed to the 
Tower ; and so the partisans of the legitimate descent, 
and of usurpers, immersed the kingdom in a civil war. 
In favor of the authority of an infant mikado^ then 
threatened, came forth, a champion named Yoritomo, 
who saved the throne, by his efi'orts, for the im- 
periled juvenile sovereign, and for this service the 
regent allowed the real power to remain in the 
hands of Yoritomo, under the title of sio4'dai-ziogoon^ 
or " generalissimo fighting against the barbarians." 
Very soon these ziogoons, from generalissimos fight- 
ing against barbarians, became generalissimos fight- 
ing against mikados. They became tenants of power 



JAPANESE HISTORY. 137 

by will, not by courtesy ; they saved tlie spiritual 
head from overthrow, but they retained his temporal 
kingdom for themselves ; their offices of trust be- 
came offices of power, and hereditarily so ; and from 
Buddhist nunneries widows were even called to 
govern for infant ziogoons. The spiritual emperor 
soon became impotent in the hands of the military 
emperor, and the dual government gradually dwin- 
dled until the accession of the plebeian — the self- 
made, the Napoleon of Japan — Taico Sama, to the 
ziogoonship, who died in 1698, at the age of sixty- 
three, after having subdued Corea, curtailed the pow- 
er of the princes, abolished the feudal system, and 
made the mikado^ a mikado " about nothing !" 

It would, no doubt, be now entirely true to say, 
that the sceptre wrenched from the mikado by the 
ziogoon, has in turn been wrested from the ziogoon 
by a council of state, and the supreme authority of 
Japan is now exercised by the president of the coun- 
cil, though the emperor is the John Doe in whose 
name he speaks. 

Kublai-khan,when he ascended the Mongol throne, 
determined upon an invasion of the Japanese empire 
from his dependency of Kaou-le. The better to pave 
the way for this proceeding, he sent an embassador 
with the following letter to Japan : — 

" The exalted emperor of the Mongols to the wang 
[king] of Niphon: — 

" I am the prince of a formerly small state, to which 



138 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 



the adjacent lands have united themselves, and my 
endeavor is to make inviolable truth and friendship 
reign among us. What is more, my ancestors have, 
in virtue of their splendid warrant from Heaven, 
taken possessions of Hia dominions. The number 
of the distant countries, of the remote cities, that 
fear our power and love our virtue, passes com- 
putation. When I ascended the throne, the harmless 
people of Kaou-le were suffering under the calamities 
of war. I immediately ordered a cessation of hostil- 
ities, recalling the troops from beyond the frontiers 
to the encampment of their colors. The prince of 
Kaou-le and his subjects appeared at my court to give 
me thanks, and I treated them kindly, as a father 
treats his children. So I intend that your servants 
shall be treated. Kaou-le is my eastern frontier; 
Niphon lies near, and has from the beginning held 
intercourse with the central empire. But during my 
reign, not a single envoy has appeared to open a 
friendly intercourse with me. I apprehend that the 
state of things is not, as yet, well known in your 
country, whereupon I send envoys, with a letter, to 
make you acquainted with my views, and I hope we 
may understand each other. Already philosophers 
desire to see the whole world form one family. But 
how may this one-family principle be carried into 
effect, if friendly intercourse subsist not between the 
parties ? I am resolved to call this principle into 
existence, even should I be obliged to do so by force 



11 



JAPANESE HISTORY. 139 

of arms. It is now the business of the wang of 
Niphon to decide what course is most agreeable to 
him.'' 

A contemptuous silence was the only answer that 
the Japanese returned to this demand. The ziogoon 
went immediately to work to put their coasts in a 
state of defence, while the mikado had stated prayers 
offered up. 

The invaders, a hunired thousand strong, came 
as " the winds come when forests are rended," and 
by the winds, as they came, their " navies were 
stranded." The necks of those who escaped from 
shipwreck were severed by the Japanese blades, and 
three alone were spared to bear back to their country 
and the summer-state lord of Xanadu, the tale of dis- 
aster, and the fate of his armada. This was in Oc- 
tober of the year 1280. 

Of the advent of the Jesuits in Japan, three hun- 
dred years afterward, and the simultaneous com- 
mencement of commercial intercourse by the Portu- 
guese ; the butchery of the Christians at Simbara, 
(which, to their eternal infamy be it said, was as- 
sisted by the Dutch,) and the expulsion of the Portu- 
guese ; of the subsequent and continued intercourse 
of the Dutch ; and the repulse of other Europeans and 
Americans, at later times, in their attempt to open 
a trade, down to 1837, there is no room to speak in 
these pages. In the introduction to the " Voyages of 
the Morrison and Himmaleh," by C. W. King, the 



140 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

first of wliicli ships was fired upon and driven from 
Japan in 1837, the history of foreign intercourse is 
given in a succinct form ; or more elaborately in 
book i. of Macfarlane. 

The population of Japan has been both over and 
under estimated ; absurdly by the Russian captain 
Golownin, who estimated that of Yedo alone, from 
what he heard, at eight millions. It can be but in- 
telligent speculation after all ; and is no doubt most 
accurately stated when it is put down as somewhat 
exceeding that of Great Britain. The best informa- 
tion I could gain, as to the population of the city of 
Yedo, on the occasion of the Mississippi's third and 
last visit to Japan, was that it numbered between 
fifteen and sixteen hundred thousand. 

I can not better close this hurried chapter than by 
giving short extracts from two prominent English 
writers, published before our sailing from the United 
States, and containing their speculations and reflec- 
tions, which it is well to contrast subsequently, with 
the result of the American expedition. 

The first says : — 

" In every case we earnestly hope that the Amer- 
ican expedition may be conducted with firmness, but 
also with prudence and gentleness. Should our very 
enterprising and energetic brethren begin with a too 
free use of bowie-knives and Colt's revolvers, the 
history of their mission will all be written in charac- 
ters of blood ; slaughters and atrocities will be com- 



ENGLISH VIEWS. 141 

mitted, and an interesting people will be plunged 
back into complete barbarity. Though unable to 
contend in the field even with a small disciplined 
force well provided with artillery, and good artillery- 
men, the Japanese, if we are correctly informed as to 
their character, will brave death and die in heaps. 
We would not make any positive assertion, but we 
apprehend the Americans will find that little or noth- 
ing can be done by negotiation. Should force be 
resorted to, the best means of proceeding would prob- 
ably be to take possession of one of the smaller 
islands, or of some peninsular or promontory that 
might be easily fortified on the land side. A line of 
intrenchments sufficiently strong to keep off any na- 
tive force, might soon be made, and easily strength- 
ened afterward. On this strong basis negotiation 
might probably be carried on with a better chance of 
success." 

The latter says : — 

" Strange and singular as everything we have 
he^rd about Japan undoubtedly is, nothing is so 
strange or so singular as the determination of the 
inhabitants to resist all intercourse with their fellow- 
creatures, except it be the fact that they have been 
able to act upon the resolution with effect during 
two centuries. It is this consideration which sheds a 
tinge of romance about the operations of the Ameri- 
can squadron. The attack upon Japan is more than 
an expedition, it is an adventure. In the midst of 



142 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

the all-absorbing prose of the every-day world we 
suddenly feel as if we were at once transported to the 
domain of Ariosto and knight-errantry. The found- 
ers of the system did ill to enlist against their cause 
the principle of curiosity, the most constant and pow- 
erful impulse of frail humanity. Let the plainest 
woman in the three kingdoms cover her face with a 
thick brown veil, and appear to shun observation and 
she will soon be followed by an inquisitive crowd. 
The flavor of forbidden fruit has smacked racily on 
mortal lips from the days of Eve downward. Be the 
impulse right or wrong it exists, and as it will most 
surely be acted on, it must not be ignored. The affair, 
however, is one of far too vital importance to be 
treated in a light or jesting spirit, for we have every 
reason to suppose, and to fear, that the resistance of 
the Japanese to the invaders will be of the most de- 
termined character. Great bloodshed and great mis- 
ery will probably precede the opening up of Japan. 
However necessary, and however justiiSable such a 
step may be, we are not of those who can contemplate 
the slaughter of a gallant people, however mistaken 
their cause, without a pang of regret." 



J 



BAY OF YEDO. 143 



CHAPTER IX. 

Before reaching the bay of Yedo, sounding-spars 
had been rigged out from the end of the bowsprit of 
each steamer, from which depended sounding-leads, 
that were kept constantly going as well as the leads- 
men in the ^' chains." As previous knowledge of the 
water was rather defective, the ships proceeded in 
with caution. The sweep of the bay is a noble one, 
as you approach, and the morning being a clear and 
lovely one, every object, from the strange-looking 
crafts coming continually in sight, to the summits of 
the high shores, and bold bluffs, were sharply defined. 
Then too, simultaneously with our first sight of the 
nolli me tangere^ we got our first sight of the moun- 
tain of Japan — Foogee Yama. 

Perhaps the incidents which transpired during our 
first short visit to Japan, can be better conveyed by 
giving them as jotted down at the time. 

July 8. — Ship cleared for action; fore and bow- 
rails and iron stancheons taken down and stowed 
away; ports let down, guns run out into position 
and shotted. Flag-ship made signal, " Have no com- 



144 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

munication with shore ; allow none from shore." 
Nine o'clock — standing up the outer bay of Yedo ; a 
number of Japanese junks in sight. Smaller boats, 
in considerable numbers, making for the ships, and 
crossing their bows ; but the sight of the revolving- 
wheels makes them haul up, and they give us a wide 
berth as we hold our way past them. To those in 
the boats who never before saw a steamship, partic- 
ularly two large war-steamers, towing sloops-of-war 
through the water at a fast rate, how wonderful must 
be the sight ! As the ships approached the town of 
Uragawa, or Uraga (about three o'clock), a fort, 
situated on a high hill, sent up a shell high into the 
air ; and in a little w^hile after we heard the explosion 
of another. As they did not appear to be aimed at 
us, but probably intended as signals, or to warn us 
not to come to anchor in their bay, we kept on. A 
few moments after stopping our wheels, long sharp- 
built boats of pine, fastened with copper, and orna- 
mented at the prow with a black tassel, that had not 
been previously observed under the shadow of a high 
bluff, swarmed off under oar and sail, and surrounded 
the ships. They were all fully manned with men in 
uniform, and an old chap leaned over a rail in the 
stern. One of the boats that reached us first, con- 
tained a mandarin with two swords, who shook a let- 
ter at us, and then attempted to board us on the port 
bow, but the presentation of a loaded musket, by a 
sentinel, made him think a little while about it. He 



AT ANCHOR. 145 

became much enraged, turned almost white with an- 
ger, his crew keeping up the while an awful pow-wow 
and noise ; and, with them, he tries to board again, 
where our rail was down, but a division of pikes star- 
ing them in the face, and a steamer's wheels kept 
revolving (rather ugly things for a boat to get un- 
der), made them adjourn their determination. Drift- 
ing aft to our port-gangway and finding the prospect 
no better, he put off for shore, pointing to, and mo- 
tioning that we must not let go our anchor, drawing 
and sheathing his swords, and holding up a letter. 
(One of these letters was thrown aboard of the Plym- 
outh, written in French and Dutch, warning us, if we 
anchored there, we did it at our " peril.") But our 
ships went in under their guns and let go their an- 
chors, forming a line broadside to shore, as previously 
ordered by diagram from Commodore Perry. Boats 
continued to circle around us, the occupants of some 
of them appearing to be making drawings of us, but 
they took care to keep at a respectable distance. In 
the evening, the lieutenant-governor of the province, 
Kayama Yesaimon, came off in a boat with streamers, 
and his rank being announced, he was allowed to 
come on board the flag-ship. The commodore would 
not receive him, but turned him over to his flag-lieu- 
tenant. In the meantime they commenced the forma- 
tion of a cordon of boats around the ships. The 
Japanese functionary was first asked why this was 
being done. He said it was Japanese '' custom." He 

7 



146 THE JAPAN EXPEDJTION. 

was at once told that it was an American " custom" 
not to allow any such thing ; that these boats must 
be sent away, not only from the flag, but the other 
ships ; and if not away in fifteen minutes, they would 
be fired into. The boats left for shore. The governor 
wished to know what these ships had come there for. He 
was told that our commodore had a letter from our chief 
magistrate to his emperor. He said that their laws 
would only allow them to receiye the letter at Nanga- 
saki ; that he would inform the authorities at Yedo 
of the arrival of the ships and of the letter ; and that 
it would be four days before any answer could be 
received. The commodore directed it to be told him 
that he would wait three days and a half, and if, at 
the end of that time, there was not some one to re- 
ceive our president's letter, that with five hundred 
men he would land, and deliver the letter himself. 
The governor then went ashore. In the evening the 
steam-chimney was ordered to be kept protected ; no 
coal to be taken from the bunkers so as to expose the 
engines ; steam to be kept up, and every suitable 
person on board ship directed to stand strict guard 
during the night, armed with cutlass, carbine, &c., 
and blue and red signal lights agreed upon between 
the ships, to be hoisted upon the appearance of any 
burning junks sent down upon us, or other danger 
during the night. 

July 9. — Still at anchor off the harbor and town 
of Uraga, each ship with springs on her cable. 



URAGA. 147 

tJraga is the seaport of Yedo, and said to contain 
twenty thousand inhabitants. Innumerable junks, 
with white4aced sails, have been continually arriving 
and departing since we have been here, having to be 
examined by officers of the customs, both going up 
and coming down. We can only see a portion of 
the town, the remainder being shut in by the narrow 
entrance to its harbor. During my mid-watch, last 
night, the Japanese ashore were striking, at intervals, 
a sweet and deep-toned bell, probably as a tocsin ; 
while from the stern of each of the immense numbei' 
of boats, anchored side by side, in shore, shone bright 
lights through lanterns of every color, making one 
long necklace of light, in front of the town of Huraai, 
situated in the midst of forts and water-batteries. At 
sunrise, through a spy-glass could be discerned a 
number of fortifications along shore, extending up to 
a point which marks the entrance to the inner bay. 
There was also visible a number of long striped- 
cloth curtains, containing armorial figures of the dif- 
ferent princes of the empire, the encampment of 
whose soldiers they are designed to mark out. The 
soldiers, like those previously seen in the boats, wear 
loose sacks of red, green, or blue, unconfined in fronts 
and having in white on their backs the insignia of 
the prince whom they serve. There was a great 
deal of marching and countermarching, with gay ban- 
ners, &c., between the different forts. The calibre 
of the guns in the embrasures, could not be made out^ 



148 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

being kept under cover, or, as the sailors say, in 
'^ petticoats." On a very well-designed fort, circular 
in plan, intended to protect the entrance to the har- 
bor of Uraga, were a number of the natives at work. 
About nine o'clock, boats well-armed were sent from 
each ship, with lead-lines, to ascertain the depth of 
water between the ships and the shore. These boats 
pulled as high as the upper fort, where the upper- 
most one was surrounded by Japanese guard-boats, 
who ordered them back, but did not attempt anything 
else, some of our oars being trailed, and the curtains 
over the muskets raised up for their edification. Our 
boats paid no further attention to them, but continued 
to stand in and pull close down the shore, getting 
soundings as they went, and at the same time making 
a rather bold reconnoissance of their guns and forts, 
who did not fire upon them, as many watching from 
the ships, at one time thought they would do. 

Jul]/ 10 — Sunday. — A number of boats came oif 
and rowed around the ship ; troops, apparently, col- 
lecting on shore. Japanese at work on a fort just 
opposite to us. Weather clear. The steep shores, 
well-wooded, looking fine as they are brightened by 
the sun-light. Evening — A whale blowed not far 
from the ship. Foogee Yama obscured by cloud. 
During the day, the capstan having been dressed as 
usual, and books distributed, the chaplain gave out 
the hymn, commencing — 

*' Before Jehovah's awful throne, 
Ye nations, bow with sacred joy," 



SOUNDING. 149 

and with the aid of many of the fine voices of the crew, 
and the assistance of the bass instruments of the 
band, in sight of heathen temples, and, perhaps, in 
the hearing of their worshippers, swelled up '' Old 
Hundred" like a deep diapason of old ocean. 

July 11. — By order of the commodore, the Missis- 
sippi was ordered to get under way, and stood up the 
straits, folio wiitg slowly after our boats sent to sound 
the inner bay, to ascertain the practicability of 
reaching the capital, our present anchorage being 
twenty-five miles from the city of Yedo. Passed 
close in under the chief fort, on the point be- 
yond which no '' barbarian" ship had ever been per- 
mitted to go. Port did not fire. On debouching we 
entered a magnificent bay, of great extent, bounded 
on its western side by picturesque slopes, bold bluffs, 
with here and there a village between them, deeply 
indented coves, and a well-wooded island, crowned 
with a three-gun battery, which on our survey chart 
was called '' Perry island." Our boats continued to 
sound ahead during the day, the Japanese guard- 
boats enveloping them and attempting to impede their 
progress by getting across their track, but attempted 
nothing further. Two little brass howitzers, on each 
of our forward guards, loaded with grape and can- 
nister, would probably have caused some dancing 
among them if they had. On the east of us, on a 
long low sand beach, through a spy-glass could be 
seen an encampment of Japanese troops, near a breast- 



150 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

work, dressed in black figured clothes, and surmounted 
with banners. This was probably an '^ army of ob- 
servation." We continued to hold our way up the 
bay until a late hour, as far as a high bluff of clay- 
stone, which was named '^ Mississippi bluff," as a 
token that it was nearer to the palace of the ziogoon 
of Japan than any foreign ship had ventured to go 
before. Our boats were then taken in tow, and we 
started on our return to the anchorage we had left in 
the morning. A two-sworded mandarin attempted to 
make his boat fast to one of our boats astern, that he 
might get a tow back, and I was surprised to hear 
him ask in English, '' Are you going back ?" The 
sailors in the boats were ordered to cut his line if he 
made fast to them. He was much angered as our 
wheels left him in the distance. We regarded his 
proposition for a tow, as cool as a fellow who Avould 
play spy on you all day, and then ask you to take 
him home in a carriage at night. On our way back 
we passed through a flotilla of their boats, when our 
chief engineer opened our steam- whistle. Never were 
human beings more astounded, when the unearthly 
noise reached their ears, the fellows at the sculls 
dropped their oars and stood aghast. To all of the 
day's doings the inhabitants of the different towns, 
and the troops strung along shore, have been con- 
stant and watchful observers. They could not under- 
stand what our movements meant. Jonathan's bold- 
ness had dumbfounded them. 



OFFICIAL VISITERS. 151 

July 12. — Governor of Uraga came aboard and 
urged Nangasaki as the proper place at which Japan 
could receive foreign communications. Commodore 
Perry replied that his government had sent him to 
Yedo^ and that he would go nowhere else to deliver 
his letter. The Japanese officials then pretended to 
hold a conference ashore, and afterward brought off' 
word that they would receive the letter at a point 
which they would make known. It was afterward 
arranged that the reception of the letter was to be by 
a high officer, sent from the capital for the especial 
purpose ; the place, a bay below the town of Uraga, 
and that it would take two days for them to get up a 
building for the ceremony. They said they had se- 
lected this spot for its privacy, that their rabble popu- 
lation might not be present ; and as the whole thing 
was without precedent with them, and against their 
laws ; — also, probably, because they did not wish us 
to get a sight of their towns, or a nearer view of 
their forts. The governor and his two interpreters 
at this interview remained aboard some time, and 
were very observant of everything, and evinced more 
information than could have been expected. The 
engine-room astonished them, though with Japanese 
self-possession they concealed much. They laughed, 
and were untiring in their attention to cherry brandy. 
On being shown a daguerreotype, they immediately 
called its name. On a globe they pointed out Boston, 
New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, &c. ; gave 



152 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

the boundaries of Mexico, and said our country had 
a' part of Mexico ; if our mission was a peace- 
ful one, why did we have four ships-of-war to bring 
one letter ? (Commodore told them that it was a 
greater compliment to their emperor — probably!) 
Wished to know why the steam-vessel " Mississippi" 
went up the inner bay so far ? It was replied that 
the commodore had more ships in these waters, and 
if they should render it necessary that they would all 
come with him, the next time he came ; he desired an 
anchorage less exposed than the one we were then 
lying at. 

July 13.— Some little suspicion of treachery ashore ; 
much conference going on among chief mandarins. 
Boats were sent from the ships to go and sound off 
the mouth of the appointed place, to see whether any 
of the ships could get in suiSciently near to cover and 
protect the landing of the boats ; orders issued pre- 
scribing who were to compose the landing party ; some 
will have to* stay on board the ships; poor fellows! 
Bad day for Japanese to-morrow, if they attempt 
with us'i the treacherous game that they played upon 
Golownin :— - 

" The Americans must not quit their wooden walls J' — ^London Pre^. 

J July 14:, — ^Bright and beautiful day. Much activity 
and preparation for the landing ; boats being lower- 
ed away, percussion-caps distributed, and twenty 
rounds of ball-cartridges delivered to each man ; of- 



LANDING — PRECAUTIONARY ORDERS. 153 

ficers rigging in undress uniforms, and arming mostly 
with cutlasses and Colt's six-shooters. Quarter- 
masters fastening American ensigns on pikes. Gen- 
eral orders received early in the morning. The Sus- 
quehanna and Mississippi will anchor in the position 
assigned them. The Plymouth will retain her pres- 
ent position, and the Saratoga to get into her berth 
if possible, but not to get out of range of the forts and 
town. The ships will watch the proceedings on shore, 
having their guns primed and pointed, and their re- 
maining boats alongside, with arms in them, ready in 
a moment to shove ashore, if the commanding officers 
think there is need of them. The boats which carry 
the officers, sailors, and marines on, shore, are all to 
have anchors, and after landing their respective crews, 
are to haul off about fifty feet from shore and anchor, 
keeping their men at their arms and watching the 
proceedings on shore, and if they are called on shore 
the officers of the boats will land with all but two men, 
who are to be left as boat-keepers ; bread and water 
in the boats. At daybreak the Susquehanna and Mis- 
sissippi steam-frigates tripped their anchors, dropped 
down, and anchored immediately across the entrance 
of the bay where we were to land, to protect and covdr / 
the landing, having springs on their cables, that their 
broadside of guns might be trained on the shore. 
The sloop-of-war Plymouth commanded the town of 
Uraga,,and the Saratoga, that of Humai,. and the^ 
forts surrounding it. At nine o'clock, our boats 

7* ^- .. '^ 



164 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

armed and manned, went alongside of the flagship, 
where were the boats of the Saratoga and Plymouth. 
After some delay the boats moved ashore. The 
captain of the Susquehanna and officers, leading ; 
Captain "Walker of the Saratoga and officers next, 
then the Mississippi's boats, in the first of which I 
was, under Lieutenant Taylor. Following in line came 
the remaining boats of all the ships, with sailors, 
marines, two bands, &c. 

The place selected by the Japanese for the deliv- 
ery of the letter, was a bay of some mile and a 
quarter in depth, surrounded by an amphitheatre of 
bold hills, its entrance being narrow, and defended 
by forts on either side. At the head of this bay, fol- 
lowing the line of a crescent beach of black and white 
sand, ankle-deep, is the town of G-orihama. Iii the 
distance, with its veil of blue, and patches of snow, 
towering up fifteen thousand feet, shone the extinct 
volcano of Poogee. The boats, as they pulled in, pre- 
sented a fine sight ; the '' flower-flag," as the Chinese 
call it, waving gracefully from the stern of each boat ; 
the bright muskets shining in the sun, and the 
epaulettes glistening. The landing was done in fine 
order, and with great promptitude, under the com- 
mand of Major Zeilen, of the marine corps. Each 
man, as tlie boat touched the beach, jumped ashore, 
and took his proper place in line, which, when formed, 
presented a bold front, notwithstanding officers and men 
all told, it scarcely exceeded four hundred men ; and 



PREPARATION'S ON SHORE. 155 

encircling tliem a few paces in rear, and as far as 
one could see, on either hand, in horseshoe form, were 
Japanese troops, who had been collected there for 
the occasion, armed with spears and bows, long 
bayonet brass-mounted muskets, and match-locks, 
with ready fuses, coiled on their right arms. In their 
front, equi-distant, sat their officers on stools, armed 
witlr two swords. Near by, not very large, were a 
number of horses richly caparisoned about the head, 
and with gaudy housings, belonging to the officers. 
Extending all around were canvass curtains supported 
by stakes driven in the ground, with different insignias 
painted on the front, and festooned with blue cords 
and tassels ; at the termination of each one floated the 
colored flag of each particular prince, whose men were 
present. The shining and gilded lacquered broad- 
brims of the Japanese; the varied costumes, brilliant 
colors, flapping flags,- and curtain enclosures, allover- 

' hung by a dense green of trees, as the eye took them 
in, made one think that he had come to be a spectator 

-of some joust or tourney. The Japanese say they 
had five thousand men present, but I hardly think 
there were as many, unless some were hid in the 
town, whose houses in our direction were concealed 
behind temporary walls of thatching straw. 

A salute of thirteen guns from-the flag-ship, which 
caused some little stir among the Japanese troops, who 
did not seem exactly to understand it, announced that 
the commodore and his immediate suite had left, in his 



156 THE 'japan expedition. 

barge, for shored In a little while he landed on a 
small jutty, made of rice-straw and sand, passing 
through a street/ formed of his own officers, to his 
place in line,, when the squadron band struck up 
" Hail Columbia" in a style, and with a force that 
made the Japanese open their ears (they may have 
to listen to it again), and the hills around sent each 
note of ''Hail Columbia" back again. ''Hail Col- 
umbia" never sounded better. The column of escort 
wi]th the marines in front, a stalwart sailor with the 
broad pennant; commodore and staff; suite of of- 
ficers.; boxes containing president's letter, &c. ; two 
men ovei* six feet high, each, with pikes upon which 
American ensigns were fastened, with revolving rifles 
slung across their shoulders; sailors with bronzed 
muskets ; Mississippi's band, &c. ; and marines then 
, marched to the building for the ceremony ; «hown the 
way by two Japanese officials. The sailors wer6 in 
blue trousers and white frocks, prettily bisected with 
the slings of their cartridge boxes, and wore blue 
cloth caps, with bands of .red, white, and blue, orna- 
mented with thirteen stars in white. The marines 
were in ,full uniform. The room of ceremony w^ 
leached by passing through a small canopied court; 
enclosed with primitive landscape screens, the floor 
of which was covered with matting. The place of . 
audience was a room in a thatched building, limited 
in space, and entirely open 'in the direction of the 
cojirt, ornamented with gauze curtains as drapery. 



THE AUDIENCE. 157 

At the back of the room were representations of 
shrubbery, and of cranes wheeling in flight over it, 
while on the two remaining sides, were hung large 
blue flags, having in the centre one large and eight 
smaller satellite representations. Overhead you 
looked up to thatching, and each rafter ^as marked 
with Japanese characters, as if the building had been 
originally constructed at some other place, probably 
at Yedo, and sent down for erection. On the left 
of the room as you entered by ascending one step, 
was seated the chief Japanese functionary,. appointed 
by the emperor to receive the president's letter, the 
prince of Idzoo ; beside him was the prince of the 
province of Iwami ; behind him quite a number of 
two-sworded mandarins.' The chief man was attired 
in a maroon silk robe, with an over-garment of red, 
blue doth socks, with places left for the great toe. 
On the back of the red over-garment, were figures 
worked \n white, some resembling cornucopias. His 
-suite were attired in the same manner with slight 
exceptions. On the other side' of the room were placed 
ornamental chairs, with well-designed arm-rests, in 
which were seated Commodore Perry and suite. 

Dr. Williams, of Canton, was present as interpre- 
ter of the Japanese language; although his services 
were not called into requisition. Mr. A. L. C. Portman, 
th^ commodore's clerk, as it was most agreeable to 
the Japanese, acted as interpreter in the Dutch lan- 
guage. The floor of the chamber was covered ^ith 



158 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

mats, having spread over them in the centre of the 
room, cloths resembling red felt blankets, indiffer- 
ently dyed. After the manner of the Japanese, two 
interpreters were in attendance on the prince, one of 
them squatted on the floor near our interpreter, par- 
tially facing the chief and another (Kayama Yesai- 
mon, governor of Uraga) on his haunches imme- 
diately in front of him. Midway, in rear of the room, 
was placed a brightly-lacquered red chest, resting 
upon eight feet, v/ith its deep and projecting lid, con- 
fined by tasselled cords of blue. The gilt ornamental 
design in front resembled the rose of the Gothic style. 
The officers of the ships occupied the court facing the 
platform. 

Everything being announced i-eady, and obeisance 
interchanged between the prince and commodore, 
beautiful rosewood-boxes, hinged, clamped, and clasp- 
ed with gold, having inscriptions wdth German-text 
letters, let in with gold on their tops, w^hich had been 
carried by side-boys, were then brought in, and dis- 
played upon the chest. Mr. Portman opened them to 
assure the Japanese of the presence of the letters ; 
and the interpreter was directed to inform the prince, 
which was done, one interpreter whispering to the 
other, that in the boxes were also translations of our 
president's letter, in Dutch and Chinese. The cre- 
dentials from the emperor empowering the prince of 
Tdzoo to receive the letter, were then handed over by 
the prince, and taken charge of by the flag-lieutenant. 



THE president's LETTER. 159 

having been duly examined the day before on ship- 
board. The letter of the president was as follows : — 

MILLARD FILLMORE, 
President op the United States of America, 
To HIS Imperial Majesty, 
THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN. ' 

Great and Good Friend ! 

I send you this public letter by Commodore Mat- 
thew C. Perry, and officer of highest rank in the Navy of the United 
States, and commander of the squadron now visiting your Imperial 
Majesty's dominions. 

I have directed Commodore Perry to assure your Imperial Majesty 
that I entertain the kindest feelings toward your Majesty's person and 
government ; and that I have no other object in sending him to Japan, 
but to propose to your Imperial Majesty that the United States and 
Japan should live in friendship, and have commercial intercourse with 
each other. 

The constitution and laws of the United States forbid all interfer- 
ence with the religious or political concerns of other nations. I have 
particularly charged Commodore Perry to abstain from every act 
whicli could possibly disturb the tranquillity of your Imperial Majes- 
ty's dominions. 

The United States of America reach from ocean to ocean, and our 
territory of Oregon and state of California lie directly opposite to the 
dominions of your Imperial Majesty. Our steamships can go from 
California to Japan in eighteen days. 

Our great state of California produces about sixty millions of dol- 
lars in gold, every year, besides silver, quicksilver, precious stones, 
and many other valuable articles. Japan is also a rich and fertile 
country, and produces many very valuable .articles. Your Imperial 
Majesty's subjects are skilled in many of the arts. I am desirous 
tliat our two countries should trade with each other, for the benefit 
both of Japan and the United States. 

We know that the ancient laws of your Imperial Majesty's govern- 
ment do not allovr of foreign trade except with the Dutch. But as 



160 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

the state of the world changes, and new governments are formed, it 
seems to be wise from time to time to make new laws. There was a 
time when the ancient laws of your Imperial Majesty's government 
were first made. 

About the same time, America, which is sometimes called the New 
World, was first discovered and settled by the Europeans. For a 
long time there were but a few people, and they were poor. They 
have now become quite numerous ; their commerce is very extensive ; 
and they think that if your Imperial Majesty were so far to change 
the ancient laws as to allow a free trade between the two countries, it 
would be extremely beneficial to both. 

If your Imperial Majesty is not satisfied that it would be safe, alto- 
gether, to abrogate the ancient laws which forbid foreign trade, they 
might be suspended for five or ten years, so as to try the experiment. 
If it does not prove as beneficial as was hoped, the ancient laws can 
be restored. The United States often limit their treaties with foreign 
states to a few years, and then renew them or not, as they please. 

I have directed Commodore Perry to mention another thing to 
your Imperial Majesty. Many of our ships pass every year from 
California to China ; and great numbers of our people pursue the 
whale fishery near the shores of Japan. It sometimes happens in 
stormy weather that one of our ships is wrecked on your Imperial 
Majesty's shores. In all such cases we ask and expect, that our un- 
fortunate people should be treated with kindness, and that their prop- 
erty should be protected, till we can send a vessel and bring them 
away. We are very much in earnest in this. 

Commodore Perry is also directed by me to represent to your Im- 
perial Majesty that we understand there is a great abundance of coal 
and provisions in the empire of Japan. Our steamships, in crossing 
the great ocean, burn a great deal of coal, and it is not convenient to 
bring it all the way from America. We wish that our steamships 
and other vessels should be allowed to stop in Japan and supply 
themselves with coal, provisions, and water. They will pay for them, 
in money, or anything else your Imperial Majesty's subjects may 
prefer; and we request your Imperial Majesty to appoint a con- 
venient port in the southern part of the empire, where our vessels 
may stop for this purpose. We are very desirous of this. 



COMMODORE PERRY'S LETTER. 161 

These are the only objects for which I have sent Commodore Perry 
with a powerful squadron to pay a visit to your Imperial Majesty^s 
renowned city of Yedo : friendship, commerce, a supply of coal, and 
provisions and protection for our shipwrecked people. 

We have directed Commodore Perry to beg your Imperial Majes- 
ty's acceptance of a few presents. They are of no great value in 
themselves, but some of them may serve as specimens of the articles 
manufactured in the United States, and they are intended as tokens 
of our sincere and respectful friendship. 

May the Almighty have your Imperial Majesty in his great and 
holy keeping ! 

In witness whereof I have caused the great seal of the United 
States to be hereunto affixed, and have subscribed the same with my 
name, at the city of Washington in America, the seat of my govern- 
ment, on the thirteenth day of the month of November, in the year 
one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two. 

Your Good Friend, 

MiLLAED PiLLMORE. 

By tfie President. 
Edward Everett, 

Secretary of State. 

Accompanying this letter was one from Commodore 
Perry, merely repeating the language embraced in 
the instructions from the secretary of state : — 

To His Imperial Majesty, 

THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN. 

The undersigned. Commander-in-chief of all the naval forces of 
the United States of North America, stationed in the East India, 
China, and Japan seas, has been sent by his government to this coun- 
try on a friendly mission, with ample powers to negotiate with the gov- 
ernment of Japan, touching certain matters which have been fully set 
forth in the letter of the President of the United States ; copies of 
which, together with copies of the letter of credence of the under- 
signed, in the English, Dutch, and Chinese languages, are herewith 
transmitted. 



162 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION* 

The original of the President's letter, and of the letter of credence, 
prepared in a manner suited to the exalted station of your Imperial 
Majesty, will bo presented by the undersigned, in person, when it 
may please your Majesty to appoint a day for his reception. 

The undersigned has been commanded to state that the President 
entertains the most friendly feelings toward Japan, but has been 
surprised and grieved to learn that when any of the people of the 
United States go of their own accord, or are thrown by the perils of 
the sea, within the dominions of your Imperial Majest}^, they are 
treated as if they were your worst enemies. The undersigned refers 
to the cases of the American ships * Morrison,' ^Ladoga,' and 'Law- 
rence/ 

With the Americans, as indeed with all Christian people, it is con- 
sidered a sacred duty to receive with kindness, and to succor and 
protect all, of whatever nation, who may be cast upon their shores ; 
and such has been the course of the Americans, with respect to all 
, Japanese subjects who have fallen under their protection. 

The government of the United States desires to obtain from that 
of Japan, some positive assurance that persons who may be hereafter 
shipwrecked on the coast of Japan, or driven by stress of weather 
into her ports, shall be treated with humanity. 

The undersigned is commanded to explain to the Japanese that the 
United States are connected with no government in Europe, and that 
their laws do not interfere with the religion of their own citizens, 
much less with that of other nations. 

That they inhabit a great country which lies directly between Japan 
and Europe, and which was discovered by the nations of Europe 
about the same time that Japan herself was first visited by Europe- 
ans ; that the j)ortion of the American continent lying nearest to 
Europe, was first settled by emigrants from that part of tiie world ; 
that its population has rapidly spread through tlie country until it 
has reached the shores of the Pacific ocean ; that we have now large 
cities, from which, with the aid of steam-vessels, we can reach Japan 
in eighteen or twenty days ; that our commerce with all this region 
of the globe is rapidly increasing, and the Japanese seas will soon be 
covered with our vessels. 

Therefore as the United States and Japan are becoming every day 



COMMODORE PERRY'S LETTER. 163 

nearer and nearer to each other, the President desires to live in 
peace and friendship with your Imperial Majesty ; but no friendship 
can long exist unless Japan ceases to act toward Americans as if they 
. were her enemies. 

However wise this policy may originally have been, it is unwise 
and impracticable, now that the intercourse between the two countries 
is so much more easy and rapid than it formerly was. 

The undersigned holds out all these arguments, in the hope that 
the Japanese government will see the necessity of averting unfriendly 
collision between the two nations, by responding favorably to the 
propositions of amity, which are nov/ made in all sincerity. 

Many of the large ships-of-war destined to visit Japan, have not 
yet arrived in these seas, though they are hourly expected ; and the 
undersigned, as an evidence of his friendly intentions, has brought 
but four of the smaller ones, designing, should it become necessary, 
to return to Yedo in the ensuing spring, with a much larger force. 

But it is expected that the government of your Imperial Majest}' 
will render such return unnecessary by acceding at once to the very 
reasonable and pacific overtures contained in the President's letter, 
and which will be further explained by the undersigned on the first 
fitting occasion. 

With the m^ost profound respect for your Imperial Majesty, and 
entertaining a sincere hope that you may long live to enjoy health 
and happiness, the undersigned subscribes himself, 

(Signed) M. C. Perry, 

Commander-in-chief of the United States Naval Forces 
in the East India, China, and Japan seas. 

XT. S. Steam-Frigate Susquehanna, 
Off the coast of Japan, July 7, 1853. 

A brief pause followed tlie delivery of the letters, the 
Japanese appearing dispirited, and their prince as if 
the day's doings might result to him in being compel- 
led to perform the ^' Happy Despatch" of his country ; 
the commodore directed the interpreter to say, that 



164' THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

as it would take some time to deliberate on the let- 
ter of the pr(5sideut, he should not wait for an answer, 
but would return in the spring ; that he would leave 
in a few days for Canton, by way of the great Loo- 
Choo island, ^ud would be happy to take any com- 
mands they might have. Owing to our'pronunciation 
of the word " Loo-Choo," perhaps, they did riot seem 
to understand the latter part of this. The interpre- 
ter was then' directed to tell them, that China was 
now in a state of revolution ; that the rebels had 
taken Nanking, ^ Ningpo, Amoy, and Cheang-foo. 
The Japanese interpreter, apparently for himself, 
asked what was the cause of the revolution. The 
commodore commenced a reply by saying, " Religion,?' 
then correcting himself, said " Dissatisfaction with 
the government on the part of the people." The in- 
terpreter reflected awhile, and then said he could not 
say anything to his prince about revolutions, but 
could only speak about the letter. The governor of 
Uraga then rose, placed the president's letter in 
the lacquered chest, and tied the cords ; then, turn- 
ing,' bowed very low, intimating that the audience 
was concluded ; the prince rising and saluting as we 
retired. 

The column of escort then reformed, and returned 
to the beach where we landed, in the same order in 
which we had come, passing down the front of the 
line of Japanese soldiers, many a scowling fellow 
iheanwhile looking daggers at us ; and their officers, 



JAPANESE FORTIFICATIONS. 165 

affecting an indifference to the scene, which they 
could not have felt, perhaps thinking how agreeable 

^ a thing it woul^ be, to hold one of those Americans 
on the end of one of their blades, as a fork, and hack 
hipi with the other as a knife ; if they only dared to 
try. So closed the Say that is^to mark the opening 
of Japan to the world. America has said, " Open, 
sesame!'' 

i said to Major Zeilen, of the marine corps (a fine 

-^ old soldier), the day before we landed, " Well, major, 
they have our cages ashore ?" '' No, sir ; no caging 
to-morrow," said he, " it will be fight to the death !" 
Our' men marched past the Japanese troops with the 
greatest indifference, making smch remarks as, " Jack, 
give us a chaw of tobapco." "Robinson," said the 
officer of the deck to a six-foot quartermaster who 
was to carry an American ensign, " don't you let 

> them take that away from you, to-day." Robiiison 
said, "Well, sir, they may do it, but the man who 

- takes it tvont be able to carry it after he gets it." 
In the afternoon, of the day of the landing, the 
steamers got underway, passed the point or " Rubicon 
Port," as it was named, and went into anchorage in 
the inner bay, which had been sounded out by boats 
under cover of the Mississippi, three days before., In 
doing so we got the best view of the line of fortifica- 
tions, which extend from a point on the western side, 
marking the narrowest part of the outer, or entrance 
to the inner bay, down to the city of Uraga. The 



166 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

first fort, built very well, was a kind of curtain-wall 
with four embrasures, fronted by an artificial plateau 
sloping to the water's edge, and protected in the rear 
by a deep triangular excavation in high sandstone^ 
whose sides sloped to the area below, and must have 
been made after much labor. This contained a bar- 
rack building, and the entrance was by a narrow 
'' grotto pausilipo," cut through a hill behind. Next, 
in a small indentation in the shore, was a circular 
fort, not very extensive, containing houses for troops^ 
and having guns in barbette. The third was on a 
small circular promontory of some size. The space 
fortified was mostly occupied by a steep wedge-shaped 
hill, and was pierced for four guns. The fourth, di- 
vided from the third by a small town, as the third 
was divided from the second, was a rampart of earth 
and m^asonry, with a parapet, built across a narrow 
gorge, surmounted by a high hill with a small crown- 
battery, from which the shells were fired on our arri- 
val. The principal and best fort, of some dimension, 
not yet completed, was situated on the north side of 
the entrance to the harbor of Uraga. This battery 
was placed some eighty feet above the water, the 
Japanese having no doubt learned, from their Dutch 
confreres^ that during a calm, at this elevation, they 
might, by a ricochet-shot, reach the ships of an en- 
emy even seven hundred yards distant. They had 
also cut into perpendicular steps the ground between 
this fort and the water, that shot may be stopped in 



sauNBiJsrGs. 167 

ricochet firings and their effect lessened if not de- 
stroyed • There were no erown batteries visible. 
Their guns, were under eoTcr, and their calibre could 
not be ascertained^ but it is doubtful whether they 
were of the calibre to render harbor defences efS- 
cient. 

As soon as the tide served, after our anchoring in 
the inner bay, the Saratoga and Plymouth got under- 
way, stood up and joined us. 

The next day the commodore came aboard of the 
Mississippi, when his broad-pennant was hoisted, the 
anchor hove up, and with boats ahead to make sound- 
ings, we stood up the bay, running nearer to the great 
capital of the empire than ship of any foreigner had 
gone before. The Japanese troops on shore kept watch 
on our movements, and their guard-boats rowed up 
in company with ourSj but did not attempt to impede 
or molest them. Having gone up and made sound- 
ings and a reconnoissance, until the water began to 
shoal, we put the ship about and returned to where * 
we had left the Susquehanna. In the evening a Jap- 
anese functionary who had been looking with much 
solicitude upon our movements, went on board of the 
flag-ship, and said, "- He hoped we would not attempt 
to go up their bay any farther, if we did there would 
be trouble." He was told that if it became necessary 
to bring our whole squadron into their waters, that it 
was necessary that the ships should have a less ex- 
posed anchorage than the one vfe had occupied off 



168 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Uraga, and the only way that such, an anchorage 
could be found out, was by surveys and soundings. 

On the 16th boats were sent down to survey and 
ascertain the depth of water in the cove which opens 
on the left hand just after entering the inner bay in 
which is situated the Saru-Sima, by some called 
u Perry island." The steamers followed during the 
day down to this anchorage, but the wind proving 
light and baffling, the sailing ships did not get there 
until evening, one of them meanwhile having drifted 
afoul of the other, on having to come suddenly to 
anchor, and carrying away a flying-jib boom. Here, 
before dusk, a Japanese official, who spoke Dutch, 
brought off as presents game- fowls which had beauti- 
ful plumage, lacquered-ware, some of their small 
pipes and mild tobacco, and brocade interwoven with 
gold thread. These were refused until they consented 
to receive presents in return. They would not give 
one of their blades nor receive one of our swords ; 
such an exchange did not indicate friendship accord- 
ing to their ideas, nor was the parting with any Jap- 
anese arms allowed by their laws. They expressed 
great desire to know when we should leave, and man- 
ifested much solicitude and anxiety about our remain- 
ing. This curiosity was not gratified. 

We had now been in their waters about eight days, 
during which we had only one opportunity of noticing 
things and people, near by on shore, and then for not 
a very long time. But what we had been able to 



JAPANESE COSTUME. *^ 169 

observe, assured us that the Japanese were a supe- 
rior race, though they might belong to the same va- 
riety of the human family as their pig-tail neighbors. 
Their complexions were better, their features more 
regular, they had not a great obliquity of eye ; their 
manners were more collected and impressive, their 
bearing more dignified, their costume less sacerdotal; 
and their crowns, instead of displaying a patch of 
hair the size of a dinner-plate behind, with a pendent 
plait, were shaven in an oval on the top, around 
which the hair was brushed perpendicularly, and 
pomatumed, terminating in a tie, from which the 
united ends, adhering together with the pomatum, 
laid like a cheroot-cigar in* form, the end pointing to 
the brow, in the centre of the place that the razor 
has denuded. They look like the literary gentlemen 
whose bald heads cause their foreheads to run back 
nearly to their coat-collar. Certain it is that they 
can hardly be deemed descendants of the son of 
Manoah, of whom it was prophesied—" and no razor 
shall come on his headP 

Their boats were sharp, and by the continued ac- 
tion of the sculls — instead of rowing on their sides — ■ 
were impelled with greater speed than the boats of 
the celestials ; while the nice bows to their junks in- 
dicated great superiority, and the single white can- 
vass sail, stretched by a yard from their enormous 
mast, was far more pleasant to the eye and sensible 
than the dingy mat-sail of the Chinaman. Their plan 

8 



170 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

of reducing sail is singular : instead of lessening the 
hoist of the sail as other nations do, as in reefing, 
they reduce the width of their sail by unlacing a 
cloth from either side. We did not on this visit get 
in the vicinity of the large capital but could form 
some idea of its consumption by the immense number 
of coasting-junks for ever going up and returning, 
keeping white the bay, with their singular sails, in 
centre of which black characters told the district they 
were from, or it was indicated by strips of black 
cloth hanging on either end of the yard. It was 
soon apparent, and the Japanese were no doubt aware 
that we knew it, that if it should become necessary 
to resort to offensive measures, that tlie blockading 
of the custom-port of Uraga, and the stoppage of the 
passage of their junks with their supplies to the im- 
mense city, would make them very effective. Their 
forts would not have been able to have raised the 
blockade ; we could have kept out of the reach of 
their guns, and peppered them with the long range 
of our own. 

On Sunday morning, July 17, at daybreak, we 
lifted anchor, and the Susquehanna with the Saratoga 
in tow, and the Mississippi towing the Plymouth, we 
proceeded down the outer bay, and left for a time 
the waters of Japan, numbers on shore and the troops 
on the parapets of the forts of Kami Said looking at 
us, and apparently much pleased with the movement. 
This time we kept down the opposite side of the bay 



BURIAL AT SEA. 171 

from the one by which we had arrived, and by eleven 
o'clock we were abreast of Misaki Awa, or the south- 
ernmost point of the bay on the east, off which we 
noticed swimming a number of seals. The natives in 
the small boats, having gotten more confidence, on 
our approach, pulled as near to us as the revolving- 
wheel would permit them. We ran in sight of the 
large volcanic island, named on the Dutch charts as 
Vries, but called Oho Sima, or Bird island, by the 
Japanese. Evening saw us threading our way through 
a group of islands, whose barren surfaces presented a 
desolate sight. One of them was Fatisisio, the penal 
settlement or Botany Bay of Japan. 

On the 18th a man fell overboard from the Plym- 
outh, but by cutting away, promptly, a life-buoy 
which he struck out for and reached, and promptly 
lowering away a boat, he was saved. I could not 
but recollect that there was a man overboard from 
the same ship the day before, but under different 
circumstances, as was told by the half-raised ensigns 
at the peaks of the four ships. Poor Jack had died 
after we had gotten to sea, and the ocean which had 
been his home during life, before nightfall was to 
cover him with its waves. The boatswain's call was 
not '' Heave-to," as to-day, but piped, which was 
echoed through the ship by each of his mates, " All 
hands bury the dead ;" and as the sun went down, 
with two of the iron messengers, which he had been 
proud to have hurled at the enemies of the star-flag, 



172 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

tied to his feet, and wrapped in the hammock in 
which with stormy lullably he had often swung, and 
swinging, dreamed of home and its endearments, poor 
Jack was launched into the sea, and soon sank 
" deeper than ever plummet sounded." 

The next day we encountered a heavy swell and a 
stiff breeze, it then became squally, and there was every 
indication about the horizon of bad weather approach- 
ing. As it was getting quite rough, and there being dan- 
ger of parting the towing-hawsers, the sloops-of-war 
were cast off from the steamers, the Saratoga being 
signaled to make the best of her way to Shanghae, and 
the Plymouth to proceed to our next place of rendez- 
vous — Loo-Choo. By meridian of the 20th we had 
a strong gale of wind on us ; top-gallant masts were 
sent down, top-masts housed, and storm-sails bent. 
At three o'clock the ship pitched away her head- 
sounding spars, springing the bowsprit in the cap; 
but the wreck of the spars was gotten on board, so as 
to give us no trouble by becoming entangled in our 
wheels. The Susquehanna lost her sounding-spars 
also, or cut them away. 

At night the sea having increased, both steamers 
having burnt out a considerable portion of their coal, 
rolled deeply and heavily. We lost, by being filled 
with the sea, the captain's gig from our stern-davits, 
— one of the prettiest and fastest boats in the squadron. 
The next morning, from the port wheel-house a hand- 
some whale-boat was washed away with oars, sails. 



A CYCLONE. 173 

mast, and breaker. By midday it became apparent, 
that we were in a cyclone, or revolving-gale, and both, 
ships were " wore" to stand out of it. On the 23d 
the gale having moderated, though the barometer still 
continued low, we proceeded on our course. This 
being the first very ugly weather that we had had 
since leaving home, landsmen had a fine opportunity 
of enjoying the comforts of a gale of wind— such as 
holding on to your basin with one hand, and per- 
forming the ablution with the other ; waking up in 
the morning, with your shoes floating about, under- 
neath your cot : at breakfast, the delight of a sticky, 
salty atmosphere is increased, by your chair sliding 
with you down to leeward with each roll, or, if at- 
tempting to grapple the table with one hand, a cup 
of tea precipitates itself inside of your vest, while 
you are attempting to secure your nicely-prepared 
eggs, that in a moment fiesco the deck under foot ; 
the saccharine is largely mixed with the saline, by 
the mingling contents of the sugar-bowl and saltcel- 
lar. This is the pleasurable experience of those, 
who '' go down to the great deep in ships." 

We reached the south end of Loo-Choo, on the 
evening of the 24th, but the weather being thick and 
foggy, could not run into the roads, so stood ofi" during 
the night. This day we recorded the occurrence of 
the first death — one of the men, who contracted a 
fever on board of the Chinese junk lost at the mouth 



174 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

of the Yaiig-tse-kiaiig. He was buried the next day 
in the foreigners' grove at Tumai. 

On running into Napa-roads the next day, we had 
some hopes of finding there the steam-frigate, Pow- 
hatan, of whose sailing from the United States we 
had intelligence, but were disappointed. The Sup- 
ply lay there alone. From her officers we learned, 
that the cyclone, that we were in, had been felt with 
great force at Loo-Choo. They had not only to 
let go all their anchors, but had also slung some of 
their carronades to prevent the ship's dragging on 
the reefs. 

We found that there had been no increase in socia- 
bility, and no improvement in the manners of our 
friends, the Loo-Chooans ; and probably with the 
view to reduce the length of our stay, they had di- 
minished the supply of provisions to the ships — al- 
though well paid for them. They plead scarcity, even 
to sweet potatoes and watermelons, though they 
might easily be seen growing in their fields. They 
preferred our loving and leaving them, but the com- 
modore had another interview with his coy-friend, the 
regent, in which he desired to know, why they wished 
to cut off supplies ; also that their officers must cease 
to dog our steps on shore, and that they must open 
their stores. As a mouse in the talons of the eagle, 
they promised everything, and promised a bazar on a 
subsequent day, at whicli the Americans might pur- 
chase whatever they had to sell. While this forcible 



4 



LOO-CHOOAN BAZAR. 175 

diplomatic wooing was going on, the younger officers, 
who had the opportunity, were enjoying the delight- 
ful walk to the Komooe at Sheudi, or killing wild 
pigeons and curlew on shore — a delightful gastro- 
nomic episode, after a stretch of salt-junk. 

At daybreak, on the 1st of August, in a public hall 
in Napa — the mayor's office, I believe — the Loo- 
Chooan bazar (!) was open. The articles exposed 
for sale, were some Japanese fabrics, brought there 
by the junks, some domestic cotton-cloth, and speci- 
mens of Loo-Ohoo lacquer-ware, and chow-chow boxes. 
By nine o'clock, A. M. — having '' opened a trade" 
with Loo-Choo, all were aboard, when the steam- 
frigates left for China, taking a look at the Amac- 
carima islands as we passed, during the day. 

The next evening, we espied a sail, which proved 
to be the United States sloop-of-war Vandalia, 
which saluted the commodore, and then laid to for 
her captain to repair on board of the flag-ship. We 
had hoped for some letters and papers fi^om home by 
her, but she had none. 

After running separated for three days, in hopes 
of falling in with the Powhatan, the steamers came 
in company again, near the southern extremity of 
Formosa. At sun-down on August 7th, the Missis- 
sippi and Susquehanna, after an absence of three 
months and eleven days, dropped anchor in the har- 
bor of Hong Kong, China. 



176 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 



CHAPTER X. 

The numerous publications upon China, from the 
^ large folios of the Jesuits, which record their trian- 
gulation of the empire over a century ago, down to 
the later books, which afford every detail of the 
strange people occupying the ^' flowery kingdom," 
render an account, of what came under observation, 
during the time the Mississippi, lay in the waters 
of China, almost superfluous, Yefc during our stay, 
the state of the Celestials was rather anomalous; 
owing to the efforts of a portion of the immense 
population under the lead of an insurgent chief, Thae- 
ping, to overthrow the existing or Tartar government. 
This rebellion has been continued so long now, that 
it threatens to become chronic. 

At the time of these intestine troubles, the great 
number of ladrones or land-pirates, who infest the 
vicinity of the densely-populated cities, whose des- 
perate fortunes, make them indifferent to what gov- 
ernment they may be under, generally seize upon the 
opportunity of plundering, and the foreign hongs, or 
factories of the American and European merchants, 



YANKEES IN CHINA. 177 

are always an object of attack, from the quantity of 
specie that is known, or believed to be within their 
vaults. The existence of the rebellion, and the heavy 
freshets in the Pekiang causing much loss and dis- 
tress, had also made the ladrones in the vicinity of 
Canton very threatening ; and a few days after our 
return from Japan, our ship was ordered to proceed 
to Blenheim Reach, to communicate with the Ameri- 
can consul, and to afford with our force, any aid that 
we could in the protection of American property at 
Canton, which, notwithstanding the representations 
made to our government, has been indebted for some 
time past to the protection of the guns of a little 
English brig-of-war, which lay off the factories. But 
if one thinks of the un-American manner, and the 
cockneyism, which marks nearly all of the United 
States merchants, who abide and much do congregate 
near the walls of Canton, perhaps the protection, 
which an English flag would give, is more to their 
taste, such at least is my opinion. It occasions no 
effort to appreciate the hospitality of these people. 
Should you be a merchant-man, and indebted to their 
brokerage for the purchase of tea and silk, or the 
sale of opium, their spacious-chambers are soon put 
at your disposal ; but if unfortunately an officer from 
some national vessel, your way to the single China- 
hotel, with its pent-up rooms, infuriate musquitoes, 
and pleasant fried-rat odors, will not be impeded by 
them in the slightest degree. During an extended 

8* 



178 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

stay, they might patronise you, if having the finan- 
ciering of the ship to do, with an invitation to a din- 
ner, or one to a '' tiffin ;" but they will scarcely be 
' heard from again, unless when they anticipate an 
emeute of the Ladrone population, when a man-of-war 
would immediately get representations about the ne- 
cessity for some force to protect their coffers. 

Blenheim Reach is about ninety miles from Hong 
Kong, and fifteen from Canton, whose port, together 
with Whampoa Reach, separated from it by paddy- 
field islands, it may be called. It was up this pas- 
sage that the English ship '' Blenheim" went to Can- 
ton, and was enabled to turn the enemy's flank dur- 
ing the late war. Ahead of us laid the huge old East 
Indiamen, looking like line-of-battle ships, and wait- 
ing till they got aboard their twenty thousand chests, 
and not far from them the Aberdeen clippers^ which 
may take rank as such only when the American 
clippers are away. At Whampoa, off a collection of 
most forbidding-looking houses, built over the muddy 
water, composing the Chinese town, there lay the 
foreign ships, the mandarin watch-boats, the junks, 
the chop-hulks from which stores are supplied, the 
protestant and catholic floating-bethels for the good 
of souls, and the well-armed opium-schooners whose 
cargoes destroy bodies. 

We laid in Blenheim Reach under the whole, hissing, 
hot sun of August and September. There being a 
heavy fresh in the river at the time of our arrival, 



BLENHEIM REACH. 179 

tlie banks were overflown, and our ship did not swing 
at her anchors for some days. Old China street at 
Canton was a foot under water, and you reached the 
entrance to the hongs through the foreign garden, in 
a sedan-chair, or on the backs of wading coolies. 
Daring the height of the swollen current, dead China- 
men floated down and hung in our wheels ; and when 
the water subsided, the exhalation of fields of alluvial 
black mud, and the visits of furious flowery-kingdom 
mosquitoes, who, like the ghostly breeches of Mickey 
Free's father, were ever going between us and sleep, 
neither contributed to the healthfulness nor comfort 
of our anchorage. Our comforts were further in- 
creased by looking upon scenery which was unre- 
lieved except by a litchee grove here and there. The 
weather was terribly hot, and if the thermometer had 
been longer, it would have probably been hotter ; 
with ratan-mat and bamboo-pillow you sought a spot 
under the awnings of the hurricane or poop deck, 
that you might half-restless and half-snoozing pass the 
night, while during the day the windsails were of 
little use, and drop and drop came down the tar from 
the rigging. Boils and other cutaneous eruptions 
affected the crew, with annoyances greater than those 
of Job, and yet they had not the salubrious climate 
of a Palestine in which to endure them. The dislo- 
cating-jaw beef, and fowls, and fresh food furnished 
us by the Chinamen, together with watery vegetables, 
nearly destitute of any nutritious qualities, were 



180 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

only partly compensated for by the half-fresh cher- 
rymoya, custard-apple, banana, or splendid persim- 
mon — persimmons splendid ! Sometimes we would 
have a thunder-storm which would purify the atmo- 
sphere for a time, but back would soon come the stag- 
nated, sweltering temperature, which neither white 
slippers nor grass-cloth could make more comfortable, 
and which made the staid, starched, stiff collar, soon 
bow its points, and relax into the opaque, prostrate 
Byronic. Every one who could, like the personator 
of Minerva at Mrs. Leo Hunter's /e^e champetre^ car- 
ried a fan. Such weather we had for two months. 

Occasionally, during the month of August, we had 
requests for aid from merchant-captains arriving, who 
represented their crews in a state of mutiny. After 
the confinement of the men, a consular court is usually 
held on board to adjudicate the difficulty. I attended 
one of these, and was surprised to see what an en- 
tirely ex-parte affair it is ; the examination is ab- 
surd. The captain's testimony is mainly if not en- 
tirely depended on, and if a bad man, may not only 
maltreat his crew, without any one to confront him 
effectively with the fact, but after having contracted 
with his men, for high wages perhaps, in California, 
on arriving in China, for some insubordination, pre- 
fers a charge of mutiny ; the men are put in irons, 
the consul's decision forfeits their wages, and thus a 
speculation is made for the owners. If not this, for 
the acts of one or two bad men in a ship, the whole 



EXCITEMENT AT C .NTON. 181 

crew are put in irons and punished indiscriminately. 
One fellow brought aboard of the Mississippi in irons , 
called a ''mutineer," and subsequently regularly 
shipped, would not have mutinied against a sheep. 

We received almost daily rumors of contemplated 
attacks upon the hongs. The latter part of August, 
the English brig-of-war '' Lily" (painted?^ passed up 
the river to Canton, being of light draft. In the 
event of troubles, the custody of specie and silver- 
plate on board of these vessels, pays a handsome per- 
centage to the commander. A survey of the Macao 
passage of the river was made with the hope that our 
steamer might be gotten up to Canton, but the collec- 
tion of a bar at a barrier which had been made in the 
river during the war, by the Chinese, made the water 
too shoal to attempt it. We sent up a body of ma- 
rines, and howitzers in the store-ship Supply, which 
vessel lay for a long time off the city. The imperial 
authorities at the city were much excited ; fleets of 
war-junks passed up and down the river in search of 
un discoverable foes ; and the governor of the city rec- 
ommended to his pig-tail community not to celebrate 
the "- Feast of the Lanterns," as it might give the rebels 
an opportunity for outbreak, and also notified that in 
the event of an attack, it must be a sauve qui pent 
business with them, as he could not extend them pro- 
tection. 

Meanwhile the officers of the ship, in an armed 
fast-boat, paid frequent visits to the city ; at times for 



vl82 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

visits merely and purchases, and at others, when 
emergency seemed to require, with armed cutters and 
howitzers. The objects on the route all became 
familiar, as if going up and down one of our own 
rivers — the pagodas, the water-side joss-houses — the 
rows of the plaintain-trees skirting the fields, and the 
big-sailed craft going lazily along in the mud canals 
that intesected them. We soon came and went through 
the huge water-craft moored head and stern in the 
approach to the city, and through the lanes of the in- 
numerable small boats, w^th their three hundred 
thousand water population, or noticed the small ferry- 
boats, in which, at the fourth of a cent each, thirty 
thousand people cross and re-cross daily, without 
interest almost. You might stroll the streets beyond 
the walls, and purchase the curiously-carved ivory 
and the many elegant and ingeniously-made articles 
of China, but the shopkeeper was in considerable 
trepidation and would speculate much on tlie ^' too 
muchee bobbery," as he called the anticipated fight- 
ing. 

I was there during the feast of the Lanterns. In 
going out from the solitary hotel, kept by Acow — 
compradore of one of our former commissioners to 
China, from whom, I suppose, he learned the little 
English he knew — you generally, througli the volun- 
teer aid of the Jemmy-Twitcher Mongols, immediately 
part with your kerchief and gloves, and it is no mat- 
ter that you saw the celestial w^ho took them, for if 



SCENES IN CHINA. 183 

he once mixes witli the crowd you could no more un- 
dertake to individualize him tlian you would be able 
to tell a particular spoke in a revolving-wheel. By 
you, passes a fellow with as much timber locked 
around his neck, for some offence, as a mortar-board 
would contain. Of the innumerable gongs beating, 
one struck at intervals attracts your attention. The 
fellow who strikes it is walking the street in front of 
a bare-backed malefactor, whose queue is wrapped 
around his head, and whose hands are tied behind 
him. As he walks, at each tap of the gong from the 
man in front, a following attendant lashes him with 
split ratan. It would take too long to enumerate the 
scenes witnessed in a Chinese street. During the 
day the bonzes marched through the streets attired in 
their yellow robes, stopping at intervals to chin-chin 
joss, by beating on gongs. At night tall prosceniums 
and staging are erected a«t the entrances of streets, 
just inside of their gates, and extending up as high as 
the roofs of the houses. These are most gorgeously 
and grotesquely decorated, and lit up with large fan- 
tastic lanterns and small lamps, looking like hun- 
dreds of illuminated lemons ; adown either side of 
the streets are hung other lanterns in front of each 
store-door. The expense of all this, and the compen- 
sation of the performers, who represent the '' sing- 
song" on the stage, and go on with their horrible 
caterwauling to the great delight of the throng in the 
narrow street below, is paid by subscription from the 



184 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

occupants of the street. An old Chinaman, of whom 
we purchased chess-men, advised us not to be away 
from our hotel too long, as there were many '' two . 
facee — no good pigeon-men" — in the crowd, who 
had no love for foreigners. 

At the time of this visit, I saw many of the celebri- 
ties about Canton ; the remarkable and magnificent 
gardens of the old China millionaire Howqua^ where 
artificial landscapes, cascades, and plants, trained in 
the exact image of all kinds of animals, are to be seen 
in perfection ; old Curiosity street, with its costly jade- 
stone spectacles, &c., and by accident, the spot, where 
some young Englishmen, captured during the war, 
were taken to, and beheaded by the Chinese. 

The last of September, vre were relieved by the 
arrival of the Susquehanna, when we ran down the 
river to Cum-sing-moon. As we approached the an- 
chorage, we discovered the storeship Southampton, 
not long from Valparaiso. When she was about a 
thousand miles from Luzon, she picked up a boat, con- 
taining three men and a boy. When brought aboard, 
their long, black hair, high cheek-bones, and dusky 
complexion indicated a Malayan origin. All they 
could say was " Sallie Baboo^^^ and they were most 
likely driven out to sea, from the group of that name, 
while passing with vegetables in their frail shallop, 
between the islands. A building having been rented 
at Macao, as an hospital for the sick and infirm of 
our squadron, the Sallie Baboo s were kept ashore 



DEATH OF LIEUTENANT ADAMS. 185 

there for some time. The boy, about twelve years 
old, evinced some sprightliness, and got hold of some 
sentences in English, but the confidence to speak a 
single word in our language, was a plant of the slow- 
est possible growth with the older ones. 

We found the Powhatan and Macedonian at an- 
chor in the harbor. They had been laying there for 
exercise in target-firing and in squadron boat-sailing. 
Unfortunately one of the officers of the Powhatan — 
Lieutenant Adams, from exposure to the intense heat 
of the sun, while engaged in the latter duty — was 
taken very ill, and a very few days after our arrival, 
our ship performed the melancholy office of convey- 
ing his remains to Macao for interment. On our ar- 
rival in the roads at that place, we found there the 
French surveying-frigate Constantino, who, upon see- 
ing our colors half-mast, in compliment half-masted 
her own. The day of interment the weather was so 
rough, that a Portuguese lorcha had to be employed 
to take the body and its escort to the shore. His 
remains were followed to the grave by his messmates, 
the officers of the French ship, those of the Portu- 
guese garrison ashore, and proper escort of marines 
with ship's band. He was buried in a beautiful spot 
in the English cementry, adjoining the garden " Ubi 
Camoens opus egregium compossuisse fertur^^^ and 
by the side of a brother-officer — Lieutenant Camp- 
bell, of the United States schooner Enterprise, and 
the grave of Edmond Roberts, special diplomatic 



186 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

agent of the United States to several Asiatic courts, 
who died in the East in 1836. 

October the Slst, the Mississippi returned to Cum- 
sing-moon^ which in the celestial dialect means, 
'' Golden-sun-boni-pasSj" but the man who could so 
call it, must be 

" of imagination aU compact : 

See Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt !" 

The most naked, barren, desolate prospect ; a partly- 
cultivated island, between which and the main-land, 
the muddy river sweeps in a current — and a collec- 
tion of Chinese hovels, which form nests for the river- 
pirates, who rob fast and post boats on their way to 
Canton and levy on the fortunes of the fishermen, 
compose the attractive picture, which the Golden- 
sun-born-pass presents. 

Here is the principal anchorage of the opium- 
hulks ; and Great Britain, a party to the '' holy alli- 
ance," that said that no member of the Bonaparte 
family should sit on the throne of Prance, and yet 
has her legions side by side with those of Louis Na- 
poleon — who keeps a squadron on the coast of Africa 
for the suppression of the slave-trade, here displays 
more of her boasted consistency, and covers with her 
flag, a trafQc more iniquitous. It is nothing to Eng- 
land, that opium is an article contraband of the laws 
of China ; from the enticing poison produced in her 
possessions, she gets a large income in revenue ; her 
ships bring the drug to China, and smuggle it in 



THE OPIUM TRAFFIC. 187 

armed vessels along its coasts ; and with her protec- 
tion, the vile poppy has medicined thousands to a 
sleep that knows no waking. She cares for syce 
silver, not for bodies or souls. But it must be said, 
that the Parsees with their '' Benares" opium, and 
even Jonathan, though he does not fly his flag, have 
a share in the traffic ; that some of the drug is even 
grown in China, and that a trade thrust upon that 
country by the throats of English cannon, is now con- 
nived at, and embarked in by corrupt mandarins, 
who share in the profits of its smuggling, while their 
duties require them to discover such ofi^enders, and 
bring their heads under the executioner's sword. 

A considerable portion of the opium consumed in 
China, is produced in its soutliern departments. Its 
growth is as much a violation of the imperial law, as 
its introduction into the Cinque ports by foreigners 
is violative of treaty stipulation. The bribed man- 
darin governors derive a large income, by looking an- 
other way in their official perambulations when a 
poppy-seed field is reached ; or it may be that the 
papaver somniferum has such an effect upon them, 
that they go past in a somnambulic state. There being 
no edict requiring of mandarins a knowledge of 
botany, they have no desire to learn the difference 
between a poppy-flower and any other. Add to this 
the demoralized condition, or rather the moral-less 
condition, of a large infanticide-practising popula- 
tion, who once having gotten the habit, become 



188 THE Jx\PAN EXPEDITION. 

willing victims of the drug, and its introduction and 
continued consumption, becomes an easy matter; — 
they first endured, they now embrace. 

There are Chinese who contend that opium is good 
for the health. It may, like intoxicating liquors, be 
used in moderation, but its use once acquired, its 
strides upon the appetite of its votary, are far more 
speedy, and fatal in results. 

The story of opium-using- — which is synonymous 
with its excessive use, need hardly be repeated here ; 
how, instead of the brains out, and the man dying, 
the brain dies and the man may still live on ; how 
the robustness of youth is suddenly changed into the 
infirmity of old age ; the limbs shrivel, the chest 
sinks, the shoulders stoop, the bones protrude — the 
sunken cheeks, the ghastly hue of the complexion, 
the extreme attenuation of the neck, causing the head 
to sink between the shoulders, and appear dispropor- 
tionate, and the man to move about a walking skeleton ; 
or how the debauchee once accustomed to the use of 
the drug, becomes as secure in its grasp as an ox in 
the coils of the huge serpent of Brazil — the succes- 
sive stages gone through, when in its power ; the vic- 
tim wrapped in dreamy hallucination is fiendishly 
mocked with the imaginary enjoyment of a seventh 
heaven; — the alternation to a supernatural excite- 
ment ; the eye glaring demoniacally, and all the brutish 
passions of human nature possessing him, or the look 
changing to the listless, leaden, dull, inane leer of 



THE EFFECTS OF OPIUM. 189 

idiocy, when the curtain falls upon the death-rattles 
of agony. Two instances of the excessive use of 
opium came more immediately under my observation ; 
one a jeweller at Macao, who was a hale, hearty-look- 
ing man upon the occasion of our first visit, yet on our 
return from Japan, had undergone frightful emacia- 
tion from its effects. The other was a Chinese teacher, 
who had been employed for the purpose of putting 
communications into the mandarin dialect. He was 
buried at sea, on the passage of the Susquehanna 
from Loo-Choo to Bonin, and those who witnessed his 
death,* represent it as one of terrible contortion and 
suffering. 

The opium stored on the hulks at Cum-sing-moon, 
comprises the Benares, the Patna, and Malwa. It is 
put up in balls and packed in chests. On its receipt, 
the custodian of the hulk proceeds to assort it, and 
with a view of testing its quality, and preparing its 
samples for the examination of the purchaser, small 
quantities of each case are boiled in water, strained 
through brown paper, and then, by the heat of a fire, 
reduced to the consistency of thick paste or molasses, 
which it somewhat resembles, when it is placed in 
little cups. 

The owners generally reside in Canton, where most 
of the sales are made ; and it is a specie business. 
A case may sometimes sell for six hundred dollars , 
and there have been times, when it would sell for 
double that amount. The article, like our most south- 



190 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

ern staple, is liable to great fluctuation in price, and 
large fortunes have been made and lost by it. 

The following extracts from some old letters, nearly 
obliterated, found floating about the harbor, from 
houses in Canton to their agents on the hulks at " the 
Moon," as it is briefly called, will give an idea of the 
business operandi : — 

" To-day I have passed two delivery letters on you, 
each for three (3) chests of Malwa opium, both in 
favor of the Chinaman Ehing, wherefore you will 
take no suspicion about the delivery. Both these 
letters are drawn by me for six chests of Malwa. 

" I will also thank you to pass one of the two 
chests, Nos.l and 2 ; pass one of them among the six." 

Another ran : " We have before us your note of 
the 3d, relating to order No. 852, for one chest 
Malwa, and note that you had retained the order, 
the holder declining to take the opium. 

'' Having now, however, agreed to take the drug 
under the same order, you will please deliver it ac- 
cordingly, but without reduction, as he must take it, 
having already paid the money. We leave it to your 
judgment, however, to allow a small reduction, should 
he insist upon it." 

These ships are well armed and numerously manned, 
mostly with Lascars. The living on them is very 
sumptuous. Some years ago Cum-sing-moon was vis- 
ited by a terrible typhoon, when these hulks broke 
from their moorings ; some were driven entirely out 



RIVER PIRATES. 191 

of the harbor, others came in contact, stove and 
sunk. The United States sloop-of-war Plymouth was 
lying there at the time, and got considerable salvage 
for property saved. 

The river-pirates make this place their rendezvous 
during the night. They would seize and rob boats 
just off the mouth of the harbor :. their boats are fast 
sailers. The fast-boat of our compradore, when 
bringing us provisions from Macao, had to run a 
daily gauntlet of the rascals. But a young Portu- 
guese officer, in command of a small armed lorcha, 
used to pursue them with much success. One night, 
about nine o'clock, having got intelligence of their 
whereabouts, while we lay at Cum-sing-moon, he ran 
quietly into the harbor, and putting his men in Sam- 
pan-boats, he fell into a nest of them and peppered 
the rascals right and left. Their crafts are then 
taken to Macao and sold, furnishing a kind of prize- 
money. 

The long and fast-sailing mandarin-boats, that 
smuggle the opium, usually get here in the evening. 
The captains of the hulks make them anchor some 
distance from their ships, because of their carelessness 
in the use of powder ; some of them would quietly 
sit over an open tank of it and smoke their pipes, 
believing that if they are blown up it is a fatality which 
they can not prevent. These boats are armed, and 
well manned, and when there is no wind to expand 
their large sails, they pull as many as a hundred 



192 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

sweep-oars moving through the water like great cen- 
tipedes. After their large crews have had their 
paddy chow-chow, in the most clamorous and discord- 
ant manner, they proceed to chin-chin joss, as the 
sun goes down, by banging on gongs and tom-toms ; 
but before midnight they have paid down their pile 
of specie, gotten their chests of the drug aboard, and 
are moving off up the river to Canton. 

We left Cum-sing-moon and its enlivening pros- 
pects in the middle of November, and went over 
to Hong Kong, and thence we triangulated, as it 
were, to Macao and Whampoa, and so back. At 
Macao we spent our time, when ashore, by prome- 
nades on the Praya, where, at eventide, the' dark- 
eyed daughters of the decayed Portuguese aristoc- 
racy cast furtive glances at the stranger, and listened 
to the music of one of our squadron-bands, which the 
commodore, who was living at Macao, had ashore 
with him ; or strolled through the barrier-gate and 
out on the campo ; or witnessed the wonderful nerve 
displayed by the knife-throwing Chinese jugglers in 
the street. 

While laying in the roads at Macao, a young 
Russian officer who had, with a squadron from his 
country, visited the port of Nangasaki, brought the 
intelligence that the emperor of Japan had died after 
our visit, and that tlie Japanese said they would have 
to mourn him for three years, during which time 
they could have no transactions or negotiations with 



ARRIVAL OF THE PLYMOUTH. 193 

foreigners. We thought the demise might be true — 
perhaps a hari-kari hastened it, but that the latter 
thing was all " leather and prunella ;" the emperor 
might have died, but another, like poor Pillicoddy, 
must turn up, when we next visited the country. 

About this time the Plymouth, which had been sent, 
on our departure from Loo-Choo in August, to the 
Benin islands, arrived at Macao, bringing the sad in- 
telligence that a boat from that ship containing one 
of her lieutenants — Lieutenant Mathews, of New 
York — and fourteen men, out on a fishing excursion, 
while the ship was lying at Peel island, had been lost 
in a sudden typhoon on the 5th of October, and that 
all hands had perished. 

Preparations being on foot for the return of the 
squadron to Japan, as soon as the storeship Lexing- 
ton should arrive, and the services of the storeship 
Supply being needed for the transportation from 
China of coal for the steamers, a small English 
steamer recently built at Hong Kong, was chartered 
on behalf of the United States government, to take 
her place off the factories at Canton. She was armed 
with four guns, and a lieutenant, passed-midshipman, 
and one engineer ordered to her, besides being manned 
from the squadron — the American flag waved over 
the "Queen!" 

On the 19th of December we stood up the river 
with the Hon. Humphrey Marshall, United States 
commissioner to China, on board, who was going 

9 



194 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

to take possession of his residence at Canton. We 
reached Whampoa at tliree o'clock, and found there 
the British war-steamer Eattler, that had not long 
before taken an active part in the capture of Rangoon. 
Her oflBcers had many a kriss and spear trophy of the 
enemy, and around her engines were well-cut Buddhist 
idols in marble, which they had brought away with 
them. 

The next day the commissioner left for Canton, and 
beside receiving his salute of seventeen guns, was 
accompanied in barges by a suite of officers, an escort 
of marines, and a band of music — a " grand function" 
accompanying the movements of prominent foreign 
personages, always has a great effect with the im- 
pressionable Celestials. The American shipping in 
the Reach fired a number of guns as Mr. Marshall 
passed up, and dipped their colors. The party ac- 
companying remained in the city some days ; I availed 
myself of the opportunity of making the circuit of the 
walls, and in company with the chaplain of the ship 
and a messmate, we started in the morning, Rev. S. 
W. Bonney, a resident missionary, most kindly acting 
.as conductor. He has been in China eight years and 
speaks the language. To take the tramp consider- 
able perseverance is necessary. You have to thread 
your way through streets so narrow, that at times 
you can easily touch the houses on either side by ex- 
tending your hands, down into which the sun never 
comes, densely packed with human beings, and over ' 



CANTON. 195 

granite flagging, for ever kept muddy by the innumer- 
able feet in motion over them from day-dawn to mid- 
night. Then you must keep on the alert and quickly 
step aside to the sill of some shop-door, or you may 
be run into by one of the thousand porters — the sole 
conveyances of Chinese cities — whose short grunt in 
your rear, as he toddles beneath the burden suspended 
from the bamboo-pole on his shoulder, warns you to 
get out of his way ; or perhaps you may get a punch 
in the rear from the ferruled shalves of some high 
functionary or rich merchant's sedan-chair, as they 
rest on the shoulders of the coolies, who carry him 
along at a dog-trot. On our route we stopped in a 
number of shops. In one there was seated an Albino- 
Chinese, seventy-five years old. A rat-merchant in- 
formed us that his stock on hand was rather light 
now, but would be larger in a day or two ; while in a 
turning-establishment, we were shown the Chinese 
lathe which only turns half way. The perpendicular 
red and gilded signs to the shops were read to us; 
such as '' May the customers come from the west, like 
clouds, and when they have purchased, may those from 
the east come." We visited a kind of aceldama — the 
Quan-tung province execution ground — a filthy trian- 
gular square in the lower part of the suburbs, running 
to the river ; the place was repulsive in the extreme. 
On a cross, suspended so that his feet just cleared the 
ground, had been strangled a culprit, above his head 
an inscription telling the offence for which he had 



196 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

sujffered ; wliile under a shed, near by, was a pile of 
heads, their long queus matted in blood. The exe- 
cutions by decapitation, during our stay, were very 
numerous ; fifty-nine were to be executed the next 
day. The culprits are made to kneel, a man stands 
behind them and raises both of their arras backward, 
as you would a pump-handle, which brings the neck 
comparatively horizontal, when one blow from the 
cleaver-like sword of the practised executioner, severs 
the head from the trunk. A woman who had killed 
her liege lord was to be cut to pieces. The laws of 
China are very severe in the punishment of female 
offenders — ' 'Women's Rights" are below par — and 
it is a land which would not be adapted for the resi- 
dence of the ''strong-minded" women of our own 
country, Chinese prophecy having foretold the down- 
fall of their empire by the machinations of women. 

We passed through one corner of the city proper, 
which, though permitted by treaties, is still a risky 
business. We were quick in our movements and 
were scarcely observed by the Tartar soldier on the 
look-out for rebels. This gave us an opportunity of 
seeing the thickness of the wall. We went in at the 
gate of the " Rising Sun," crossed a small hypote- 
nuse, and came out at the gate of the " Tranquil 
Ocean." 

We next emerged into an open space on the north 
side of the city, used for drilling their soldiers, and 
where archery is practised on horseback at full 



CANT02T. 197 

speed, the most successful shot having as his prize, 
his name recorded in a temple near by. We crossed 
the place with a number of boys crying after us as we 
walked, ''Panqui! Pan qui !" (foreign devil), and 
passed under a recent triumphal arch of granite, 
erected by subscription and by imperial permission. 
The inscription would be news to the English : it told 
in grandiloquent terms, how the outside barbarians 
during the war, were repulsed by Chinese valor from 
their walls. Not far from here we stopped at a re- 
freshment-house, and got tea and sweetmeats. Here, 
as at every other point, if we stopped for a moment, 
a crowd collected around. One would hold up an 
infantile '' pig-tail" to the window, that he might see 
the "outside barbarian" inside, eat; while an old 
fellow created considerable laughter by pointing to 
my mustache — the wearing of the mustache among 
the Chinese indicating a grandfather. There not 
being any house for some distance, we walked close 
under the walls for some time. They were quite 
high, built of stone, capped with brick, almost cov- 
ered with creepers and vines, and had at intervals 
projecting angles for look-out purposes. 

We were now out of the suburbs, having on our left 
a valley shaded with the bamboo and banyan, and 
containing granite vat-shaped wells, from which the 
water was being continually carried within the walls. 
We ascended a high hill on which a number of goats 
were browsing, and seated ourselves on the steps of 



198 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

a fort. This place was captured by the English after 
much difficulty, being compelled to drag their guns 
a long distance from the river, over rice-fields ; and 
here it was that, after getting possession, they got the 
mortifying intelligence that the commodore had grant- 
ed a truce. The inscription on the gateway told how 
it had been placed there to guard the city, and to 
watch those who came to plunder. From here you 
could see over the walls, and look down upon the city 
within, the houses of which did not appear more nu- 
merous than outside ; and we could discern the con- 
sular-flags at the hongs, that we had left some hours 
before, in the extreme distance to the east. 

It is almost to be regretted that the English should 
have consented to treat with the enemy, and given up 
this fort, when they had the whole city at their feet, 
and could have given these treacherous, malignant, 
cruel, dictatorial, self-conceited, vain people, a lesson 
in enlightenment, which would have lasted them a 
long time, and procured a little more deference for 
the " rest of mankind." 

Descending from here we had a sight of an old 
mosque, and also of a dead-house, where the Chinese 
frequently allow their deceased relatives to remain for 
six months at a time, until their bonzes shall desig- 
nate some luckp spot in which, in their trunk-of-tree- 
looking coffin, they may be buried. In a hill-side 
cemetery we saw persons worshipping at the tombs 
of their relatives, and burning joss-paper ; also noticed 



AROUND THE WALLS OF CANTON. 199 

a Chinese funeral, the mourners in white. We re- 
turned by the western suburbs, and after stopping a 
while to take a look at the oil-mongers' hall — each 
calling in Canton having a similar building — a kind 
of 'change, we elbowed our way to the hongs which 
we reached about three o'clock, having left them at 
ten in the morning, during the whole of which time, 
Mr. Bonney, while very polite in his attentions and ex- 
planations to us, like one properly imbued with the 
spirit of his mission, as he is, distributed his " Yesoo " 
or Christian tracts to those whom he would first as- 
certain, could read them in Chinese, being nearly the 
only medium by which it may be hoped to introduce 
Christianity into that country. 

A jaunt around the walls of Canton one is glad to 
have taken ; you are subjected to annoyances and 
names, if not violence. Some called after us, " Kill 
them as the brute," and others made sign of throat- 
cutting, mostly young people, who were reproved by 
Mr. Bonney in their language, still it was best to keep 
on at a brisk pace, and obey fully the injunction given 
to Lot's wife. This was discreet. We escaped a 
shower of the missiles with which those who adven- 
ture the tramp are sometimes saluted ; two only be- 
ing thrown at us, one, not very large, taking me back 
of the neck, and the other falling between one of my 
companions and myself. 

In the evening we crossed the river and paid a visit 
to the pagan temple of Honan, that large structure, 



200 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

where the disciples of Buddha worship him with his 
three faces, representing the past, present, and future. 
The buildings of this temple cover a space of thirty- 
five acres, and an orange -garden, and place for 
burying the deceased priests and the wealthy dead, 
fifteen acres more. The main building, whose ap- 
proach is under a noble growth of banyan-trees, is 
over, one hundred feet square, filled with colossal 
demon images of wood and gilt, who keep off evil 
spirits, together with twenty-four gods of pity. The 
number of priests is between one and two hundred, 
all eating at the same table, though vegetables and 
rice supply the place of black broth. Then they show 
their porcine afi&nity ; having there the sacred pigs 
— so fat that their eyes may not be seen, and who are 
fattened till they die. The time of our visit was after 
sundown. We visited the apartments of the abbot 
of the establishment, who was evidently just recover- 
ing from the effects of opium. This old fellow, once 
almost felt persuaded to become a Christian ; that is, 
he almost made up his mind to come to the Christian 
country of the United States, but his infirmity and 
the dislike to leave a certain support for the balance 
of his days, prevented it. To say that he would have 
been willing to change his creed, would be almost a 
negation of terms. What religious creed has a Chi- 
naman ? If any, it is a bundle of negatives. He 
thinks nothing in such a connection : he believes noth- 
ing. How can you change him from a position, 



A Chance for matrimony. 201 

when you do not know where he stands ? how can 
you change his belief when he has none ? You had 
as well beat the air. 

This old abbot desired Mr. Bonney to tell us that 
there was a Chinese lady who had reached Canton 
from Peking, who was desirous of uniting her fortunes 
for the balance of her days to a foreigner : her feet 
were only some two and a half inches long. We de- 
sired him to be informed that it '' Was not at all 
in our way." 

The next day I left Canton for the ship in one of 
the barges, which came up for the purpose of carry- 
ing down specie for the use of the squadron. They 
were all well armed ; though the river-pirates are 
always, by some fraternal telegraph, posted of the 
movements of treasure to Whampoa, they will scarce- 
ly dare attack a man-of-war's boats, yet if not watch- 
ed, they are willing to attempt, the apparently ac- 
cidental, running down of a boat with treasure, that 
they may subsequently fish it up, knowing as they do 
every spot. 

The 25th of December — a drizzly, disagreeable 
Sunday, that was not '' Happy, happy Christmas, 
that can win us back to the delusion of our childish 
days, and transport the sailor and the traveller, thou- 
sands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his 
quiet home," — saw us passing the fortifications of the 
Bogue, which stupidly neglect crown-batteries with 
admirable physical formation for them, by which the 

9* 



202 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

rigging, tops, and spars of an enemy's ship might be 
sorely troubled, bound down through the Cap-sing- 
moon passage, back of Lantow island, to Hong Kong. 
The next day the Lexington arrived. 

The news of the death of Vice-President King we 
had seen, but the official intelligence we did not get 
for some time. On the 29th of December, in honor 
of the deceased, each American man-of-war in the 
harbor, fired minute guns at daybreak, mid-day, and 
sundown. In this they were very courteously joined 
by the English flag-ship Winchester, commanded by 
Admiral Sir Fleetwood Pellew, son of Lord Exmouth 
of naval renown. 

The beginning of 1854 found us in the harbor of 
Hong Kong, preparing for departure for Japan, and 
awaiting the- arrival of the next oriental mail-steamer. 
The intervening time was occupied in coaling the 
storeships, and in an occasional dramatic performance 
on one of the steamers ; a thing not at all calculated 
to improve discipline ; whose burnt-cork and dramatic 
performances make " Rome howl" much oftener than 
good sailors ; besides, the lights employed not con- 
tributing to the safety of a man-of-war from fire. At 
such times the quarter-deck awnings are usually ele- 
vated, and draped with the numerous flags ; under- 
neath, chandeliers of windsail-hoops and lashed bay- 
onets and suspended overhead, the guns rolled out of 
the way, the mainmast decked with palm-branches ; 
and when the ixiusic arises in the floating ball-room, 



1 



BALLS ON SHIPBOARD. 203 

the guests flit in the mazes of the dance, and nothing 
interrupts the twinkling feet of the en-bon-point Eng- 
lish women save an occasional ring-bolt in the deck. 
Tables were spread in the different messes. At such 
times, "H. E., Sir Samuel, K. C. B., governor and 
commander-in-chief, and vice-admiral," and the " ma- 
jor-general, K. H., of the forces," and the officers of 
the " 59th," and foreign naval officers, were aboard. 



204 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Six months precisely from the day of the first 
landing of the Americans in Japan, the mail having 
arrived from Suez, and the other vessels of the 
squadron having left in advance, we prepared to fol- 
low. On the morning of the 14th of January, the 
black smoke rolling away from their funnels, an- 
nounced steam being gotten up on three as large war- 
steamers as were to be seen in any waters — the 
Powhatan, the Susquehanna, and the old Mississippi 
steam-frigates. Considering their size, it was a sight 
that the harbor of Hong Kong had never before wit- 
nessed, and will no doubt be many a day before it 
shall see again. At half-past ten in the morning, 
everything being ready, agreeably to signal the sliips 
got under way, the Susquehanna leading out, and the 
Powhatan and Mississippi following, with the Lexing- 
ton and Southampton in tow. As tlie flag-ship pass- 
ed the Winchester, the English admiral manned his 
rigging, cheered, and fired a parting salute, whicli 
was returned promptly. 

The first part of the run we had fine steaming- 



LOO-CHOO AGAIN. 205 

weather. We stood up to Breaker Point on the 
China coast, and then headed across the channel for 
the south end of the island of Formosa. In three 
days this land was in sight, and we ran past it on a 
lovely evening, with the cultivation and fine growth 
of trees in full view. The setting sun soon lit up gorge- 
ously the whole picture, and nature in its beauty hav- 
ing no barbaric phase, one could scarcely realize that 
a spot so lovely to the sight, was the home of a lot of 
throat-cutting, piratical Chinese refugees. Before 
daylight disappeared, we saw the lonely spike-headed 
Veto Rete rocks, standing in mid-ocean, a dreaded 
thing to mariners, and right ahead was visible the 
conical little island of Botel Tobago, 

At night we passed the island of Sammassama, in- 
habited by a peculiar people. In two days more we 
had rough, stormy weather, and the ships in tow 
were cast off to proceed under sail. The navigation 
among the islands on the northeastern side of For- 
mosa, owing to the currents, becomes very intricate. 

On the night of the 19th we could hear the break- 
ers, on the reef surrounding the island of Typinsan, 
on which the Providence, English twenty-gun ship, 
was wrecked in 1790. We passed the Amakarimas 
on the 21st, and in the evening the three steamers 
anchored in the roads of Napa, Loo-Choo, where we 
found the razee Macedonian, the sloop-of-war Vandalia, 
and the storeship Supply. In a few days the two 
other storeships arrived, and the weather became very 



206 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

rough. The sea broke and tumbled furiously in over 
the reefs, while the ships rolled at their moorings, and 
communication by boat between them was almost dis- 
continued. 

About this time a young assistant engineer of the 
Susquehanna died, and the boats that accompanied 
the body for burial ashore, had to row through the 
heavy sea. Pity but that he had been left at Macao, 
from which place he had written to his friends not to 
write him again as he would soon be home. Poor 
fellow, it was his long home he soon went to. 

The boisterous weather continuing, the carpenters 
were unable to transfer a deck cabin from the Sus- 
quehanna to the Powhatan, to which vessel it was in 
contemplation to transfer the flag, or to discharge the 
coal from the Supply and land it. 

The Mississippi having been as deep as usual with 
her coal, on leaving Hong Kong, and rolling heavily 
in her run from that place, was found, while laying at 
her anchors, to leak from twenty-two to twenty-four 
inches of water, in twenty-four hours, which was 
deemed sufficient by those on board, considering how 
flat a floor the ship had. 

On the 31st of January, the weather having be- 
come more favorable, agreeably to order, the Macedo- 
nian, Vandalia, Southampton, and Lexington, got 
under way and stood handsomely out of the harbor, 
bound on their first visit to Japan. An exploration 
party by land, left, on the same morning, for the 



A REFUGEE. 207 

northern part of the island, where it had been said 
powder was manufactured, and that there was coal. 
The result of the exploration was the bringing back 
some of the '' coal blossom^^^ from which some were 
sanguine, that there was coal on the island. It will 
be many a day before any steamer will cross the 
Pacific in the latitude of Loo-Choo ; and Napa will 
never be the place selected for coaling. 

During the night a poor devil of a Loo-Chooan 
paddled off to the Susquehanna, soliciting safety, 
from some on shore, whom he motioned, were going 
to kill him. Not having previously, '^ declared his in- 
tention in the United States," it was not possible to 
get up another Koszta affair ! His canoe was hoisted 
on board, and the man put under the sentry's charge. 
The converted missionary at Napa — Dr. Bettelheim, 
expressed the belief, that the poor creature was a 
spy. This opinion was not at all surprising from the 
Dr., who never displayed amiability toward the pop- 
ulation, and in answer to an inquiry about their 
history, or their upper classes, his response was '^ They 
are all liars — not a word of truth in them." This 
feeling appeared to be entirely reciprocated by the 
Loo-Chooans, to whom his presence appeared most 
distasteful. 

When other mediums than himself were adopted 
for the procurement of eatables, &c», we generally 
found, that we succeeded better. The Loo-Chooans 
are not in a condition to receive gospel-truth, and his 



208 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

efforts at proselyting were all well known in Japan, 
and any protection, that we might appear to extend 
to him, or the slightest, even apparent co-operation 
with him, were not at all calculated to advance the 
desires of our government with the Japanese. Be- 
sides this, it is said, that some, temporarily con- 
nected with the squadron, distributed ''Yesoo'^ 
or religious tracts among the people, during our 
stay, which was not adventitious for our objects 
with a people, to whom in his letter, to allay their 
ever-active suspicions, in the first paragraph, the 
president had deemed it necessary to say, that the 
envoy he had sent them was '' no missionary of 
religion." Certain it is that no attempt at increasing 
the field of missionary labor, among the jealous, 
tenacious, and suspicious Niphon race, who chiefly in- 
habit the northwest islands of the Pacific, can ever 
go pari passu with efforts to establish treaty relations 
and commercial intercourse, unless like Mohammed 
preaching against the idols of the Kaaba, the cimetar 
gleams in one hand, while the Good Book is upheld by 
the other. ^ 

Dr. Bettelheim having received intelligence from 
England, of being superseded by another missionary, 
named Moreton, was with his family tendered a pas- 
sage in the Supply to China. He left behind more 
patients than proselytes ; poor patients, grateful for 
the physical assistance, which his Escul apian art had 
enabled him to extend to them, when afflicted with 



DR. BETTELHEIM. 209 

the noxious diseases of the islaPxd. This medicinal 
aid was, no doubt, often extended under difficulty— 
the want of faith in the remedy by the afflicted, and 
the sneers of the bystanding native Hippocrates, I 
remember on one occasion, being attracted by a 
group, who gathered around a white-headed old na- 
tive, who had fallen apparently in a fit. As he lay 
stretched upon the ground, some held up his head at 
intervals, and attempted to give him chah or warm 
tea to drink, while a native Sangrado, was leopardiz- 
ing him with mochsa burning. Dr. Bettelheim, who 
was by, thought the man should be bled, but he said, 
"If I bleed him, and he recovers, they will say, the 
mochsa cured him ; if I bleed him and he dies, they 
will declare I killed him." 

It was understood that the commodore had pur- 
chased or procured from the authorities, the place orl^"^ 
shore at Tumai, where our coal had been stored, and 
over which a shed had been erected. It was left in 
charge of an acting master's mate, who had command 
of a number of invalid seamen, quartered in a build- 
ing not far off. The American flag floated over the 
coal shed, for the first time, on the 5th of February. 

During this visit the people appeared rather more 
friendly than usual. We took our walks as formerly to 
the castellated and beautiful Sheudi. The vernacular 
had been slightly acquired by the juveniles ; a small 
boy in a school counted twelve for me in English 
quite plainly, while others desiring to display the 



210 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

activity peculiar to juvenility, when scrambling for 
coppers, would say as you passed, "American — how 
do you do ?" 

On the 3d of February, the commodore with a 
suite and military escort similar to the one of June 
6th preceding, paid another official visit to the palace 
at Sheudi : a proceeding anything else than devoutly 
wished for by the prince-regent. The palace-gates were 
opened and we were ushered into the former hall of 
audience. On this occasion a number of American 
gold and silver coin were left with them, for which 
they were informed, that on the return of the squad- 
ron, they were to give an equivalent in similar metals 
of their currency. They would gladly have avoided 
this, but they felt themselves the victims of a gently- 
forcible suasion, that there was no getting around. 

A banquet was spread as before, and as each guest 
left the building, an attendant functionary at the 
door handed him a red slip of paper written on in 
the mandarin character, which proved to be kind of 
hospitality shares, and on their presentation at the city 
of Napa, entitled the holder to a " cumshaw" of a 
pipe and pouch, and bundle of paper. 

On the 7th of February the three steamers left 
Loo-Choo for Japan. On getting outside of the har- 
bor a sail hove in sight, which proved to be the sloop- 
of-war Saratoga from Shanghae. We lay to for an 
hour and a half, getting from her in boats, bullocks 
and provisions that she had brought. At five in the 



DAIS^GEROUS NAVIGATION". 211 

evening we were off the northern part of Loo-Choo 
island — '' Mellville," which had been surveyed by 
Captain Beechy, R. N., and resurveyed by boats from 
our squadron. 

We got, after leaving Loo-Ohoo, what the sailors 
call a good " slant" of wind, and ran free under can- 
vass as well as steam. On the night of the 11th it 
came on thick and chilly, and found us groping our 
way among the chain of islands just southward of 
Ohosima. One steamer was unable to discern the 
lights of another, and the midnight navigation was 
not rendered any more pleasurable by the corybantic 
sea, or the reflection that during the day we had dis- 
covered dangerous rocks poking their points above 
the water, not laid down upon the charts, which would 
punch a hole in the bottom of a ship with no com- 
punction. But it is remarkable what indifference or 
philosophy takes possession of those, who are ac- 
customed to plough the great deep, upon such oc- 
casions. They may know the peril of the locality in 
which they are sailing, yet they turn in as usual ; sleep 
and snore, and reck not of what may come. 

The next morning was Sunday : we had left Japan 
on that day, and we were now returning to it. The 
sun came up bright and clear, but the air had become 
very cold, and penetrated the ear painfully as we 
stood upon deck, because of the transition from the 
more genial temperature of Loo-Choo, which we had 
left a few days before. On our right hand was Oho- 



212 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

sima — the smoke slowly ascending from its volcano 
like incense from nature's altar, while right ahead of 
US were the mountain ranges of the shore of Japan 
wrapped in snow — yes snow, a thing we had not laid 
eyes on for many a month before : — 

And as springs in deserts found, seem sweet, 
*' An brackish though they be/' 

SO this even chilling remembrance, brought up a 
warmth of recollection of our own country. 

Having drifted a good deal during the night, day- 
light found us opposite the wrong bay — that of 
Kawatsoo, instead of Yedo. But lucky so it was, for 
on approaching, two ships were descried in under the 
land. On reaching signal distance we made out the 
numbers, flying at their mast-heads, to be those of the 
Macedonian and Vandalia. The latter vessel, being 
the nearest, soon telegraphed the flag-ship " ashore is 
the Macedonian," this vessel the night before, when 
thick and hazy, having gotten on a reef. When we 
came up she had thrown over a number of things to 
lighten her, and had slung and buoyed her guns too, 
to let them go, if necessary. Signal was made for 
the three ships to come to anchor. In the afternoon, 
the sea being smoother, the Mississippi was directed 
to pull the Macedonian off the reef, which she did 
finely, parting one hawser in the undertaking. The 
ships remained at this anchorage for the night. Be- 
fore sundown, most opportunely, the Lexington hove 
in sight. The Southampton, more lucky than the 



FOOGEE YAMA. 213 

other sailing-vessels, had made the bay of Yedo, and 
her true, old sailor-commander had run up it, as far 
as the sailing-chart furnished him, laid down. The 
Japanese on shore, who knew of the grounding of 
the Macedonian, had gone up to where the Southamp- 
ton lay, and informed them of an American ship 
with a white streak around her, being ashore, and 
with a native chart, they pointed out the spot, where 
she was. Captain Boyle despatched a launch with an 
officer to her assistance, though the arrival of the 
steamers, rendered it unnecessary. 

No sight could have exceeded in magnificence the 
one presented by Foogee Yama at daylight, the next 
morning. The clouds that had obscured it the even- 
ing before had disappeared with the night. The air 
was clear ; the mountain seemed to have moved 
nearer during darkness ; its mantle of snow, divided 
by rugged ravines, was more plain; and when the 
moon was setting, and sharply defining one side with 
its chill, cold rays, the sun, in all his state, came up 
upon the other, and burnished with brilliant glory the 
huge cone as it swelled up into the sky. 

We entered the bay of Yedo in the morning of the 
13th of February, the Susquehanna towing the Van- 
dalia ; the Powhatan, the Lexington ; and the Missis- 
sippi, having more towing-power from greater face of 
wheel and immersion of paddle, the Macedonian. As 
before, the batteries were ready, and guns shotted ; 
but instead of proceeding cautiously, as on the occa- 



214 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

sion of our former visit, the line of ships ran directly 
past their forts and into their inner bay, not stopping 
until reaching what had been called '' American an- 
chorage," on our first reconnoissance, about ten miles 
above the port of Uraga, off the island of Natse. 
The storeship Southampton had arrived there some 
days before. We had scarcely anchored when some Jap- 
anese officials came off to the flag-ship to welcome the 
commodore and officers back to Japan. They verified 
the intelligence we had received through the Russians 
before leaving China — that of the death of the em- 
peror Minamoto Jyekosi^ and the accession to the 
throne of his son, with the title Minamoto Yosisaki- 
sei-tai-seogun. It was very soon discovered from 
them, to our surprise, that their government was 
prepared to return an affirmative response to the de- 
mands and requests contained in the letter of our 
president. They informed the commodore that a 
building had been erected, and preparations made to 
receive him at Uraga, where they said was a high 
functionary who would deliver to him the imperial 
answer to the president's letter, and begged that he 
would move his squadron down to that place. 

The commodore, through his captain of the fleet, 
peremptorily refused to accede to this request, on the 
ground that the anchorage there was too much ex- 
posed at that season of the year ; and requested them 
to inform their government that a suitable place for 
his interviews with those appointed to confer with 



WHERE TO NEGOTIATE? 215 

him, must be selected in the vicinity of the then an- 
chorage of his squadron, otherwise, if he moved at 
all, it would be to ascend the bay in the direction of 
Yedo. 

Several days were allowed to elapse before the 
Japanese consented to change the location for the 
negotiations. The weather proved quite rough, but 
the boats of the squadron, under that most admirable 
officer and gentleman. Lieutenant W. L. Maury, con- 
tinued to make soundings and cross-bearings in the 
direction of the city. On one day the weather proved 
so rough, that the surveying-boats and their parties, 
miable to get back to their own ships, remained with 
the Southampton all night, which vessel had been 
moved further out and higher up to triangulate 
upon. 

The Mississippi was heeled with her guns, and her 
shot and shell temporarily transferred to the Susque- 
hanna, to get at her leak. The broad-pennant was 
transferred from the latter ship to the Powhatan ; 
stat^-department cherry cordial was freely set out for 
visiting Japanese officers aboard of the flag-ship; and 
the Vandalia, with Fleet-Captain Adams, was sent 
down to Uraga to have an interview with the gover- 
nor of the place, and to tender a passage up to the 
squadron, to the high functionary with the imperial 
answer at that place. This was declined. They said 
that thus far they had yielded to us, and it was but 
right that we should do so in some things to them. 



216 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

especially as they had already erected houses for re- 
ception and negotiation at Uraga. 

It was well known that " nulla vestigia retrorsum," 
should be the motto in dealing with these people; 
and the Japanese finding that the American " Ma- 
homet would not come to the mountain," decided 
that the " mountain should go to Mahomet," and so 
consented to the removal of their buildings higher up 
the bay. It so happened, that just at the time that 
the Vandalia appeared in sight on her return with 
the declension of the Japanese, that the remainder of 
the squadron had gotten underway to move ten or 
twelve miles higher up to the more land-locked an- 
chorage off Kana Gawa, or river Kana, and the Jap- 
anese believing there to be an immediate concert of 
action, and our surveying-boats having approached 
to within a very few miles of their great capital, very 
readily acquiesced in our requests. 

On the 22d of February the different ships fired a 
salute in honor of the day. The atmosphere was the 
purest, and it was a fit presence in which to honor 
the memory of George Washington — Foogee-Yama^ 
with its mantle of snow, towered upon the sight, its 
ermine of the elements typifying the purity of his 
character ; and its great height, the eminence which 
he attained in the eyes of the world. 

The spot selected for the erection of the buildings 
for the conferences, was on the beach of the village 
of Yokohama, or compost town, in the small bight of 



JAPANESE BOATS. 217 

Kawa-saki, and separated from the city of Kana- 
gawa by the little river Kana. This place was quite 
sheltered by a projecting bluff below. The Japanese, 
as could be seen through a glass at two and a half 
miles distant, set to work in the erection of the build- 
ings on shore, with a Babel-like activity ; and the 
ships of the squadron moved in closer and formed a 
crescent line in their anchorage, agreeably to buoys 
previously established. 

While the buildings were being gotten ready, a 
number of their fast-sailing, sharp, copperplated and 
tassel-prowed boats, some quite ornamentally painted, 
came off and moved round the ships, their inmates 
not being allowed to come alongside by their govern- 
ment's cruisers, peering all they could. The sterns 
of these boats are open, or indented to the distance 
of a foot or so in their build, they believing, perhaps, 
that the eddying water at this point serves to propel 
the craft. The tall, square masts of their boats, when 
not under sail, rests on a kind of gallows at the stern. 
At one corner of the stern is an upright bamboo-pole 
to which, like a tavern-keeper's sign, is attached by 
strips, a cotton or provincial flag ; if it be a govern- 
ment or customhouse boat, the flag is of white cotton 
with a horizontal black stripe through the centre of 
it. On the other corner is a similar arrangement, 
from which is suspended the universal paper lantern, 
differing from the Chinese in lifting up, instead of 
opening out like an umbrella. The rowers of these 

10 



218 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

boats are athletic men, who appear very indifferent to 
cold, and in the chilliest weather their cotton gar- 
ments are most epigrammatic in character. 

The Japanese officials, or gentlemen, who came off 
to the ships were politely received and kindly enter- 
tained, at which they seemed gratified, and, after the 
manner of their land, indicated their appreciation by 
bringing from time to time little presents of lacquered- 
ware, &c. I don't remember to have seen anything 
else but the most quiet and gentle manner in any of 
these visiters, except in the case of an impertinent 
little officer of artillery, who it would have been as 
well to have shown the gangway. This fussy little 
animal, who rejoiced in a flaming pair of big bro- 
cade breeches, being a consumptive, according to the 
JEsculapian theory of his country, left all '' the hair 
on the top of his head," which according to our the- 
ory is the " place where hair ought to be." He 
had, however, the cheroot-cigar-looking tuft of hair 
laying horizontal, and end pointing forward. This 
fussy little person pryed into everything about the 
ship with rude curiosity. He came and went from 
the cabin without decorum, and examined huffily offi- 
cers' state-rooms, without solicitation. The only point 
of interest in the diminutive animal was, that he ap- 
peared to understand quite well, how a howitzer in 
battery should be worked. 

A dinner was given on the Susquehanna, by her 
commander, to Yezimon, governor of the province of 



JAPANESE AT DINNER. 219 

Uraga, and a suite of ten others, among whom was 
the little peripatetic consumptive of the artillery. The 
Japanese being accustomed to the use of the chop- 
sticks at their meals — which are not of ivory as the 
Chinese, but lacquered black — were a little awkward 
at first in the use of the Christian assistants of knife 
and fork, but it did not take them long to acquire the 
requisite facility, when they made up for lost time. 
The cherry cordial, of which they are very fond, did 
not go untasted, and champaigne was by no means 
neglected by them. Accustomed to the small saki-cup, 
they admired the contents more than the size of our 
glasses. When any health was proposed, the Japa- 
nese — as if using the staghead-pattern cup dug up at 
Pompeii — turned their goblets upside down on the 
table, to show the absence of heel-taps. 

The health of their emperor was drank, for which 
the governor, through his interpreter, returned thanks 
and gave the health of the president of the United 
States ; and after his own health had been given, he 
gave the health of the commodore (not present). 
This was all very well apparently, but I shrewdly 
suspect that for the hint, they were indebted to Mr. 
A. L. C. Portman, who was present and interpreted 
from the Dutch, in which they preferred conversing 
at all times : he is too conversant with the proper 
etiquette of such occasions, to let this surmise go un- 
indulged in. They remained at the table some two 
hours, during which time one of their number present, 



220 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

"by request," sang a Japanese song — if a kind of a 
cross between the half wail, half-vocal screech of the 
Chinese, a boy dragging a stick over the palings after 
him, and a severe asthma, may be called a song. In 
return one of the lieutenants of the ship present, sang 
" Ginger Blue." " Ginger Blue" sang in the her- 
metic empire ! What impertinence, Jonathan ! to 
indulge in such refrains before the potentate presence 
that once required knocking of head from a Russian 
count ! Thy good friend the London Times^ will 
'' condemn thee to everlasting redemption for this," 
and wlien it learns it, how many additional articles 
will appear in its columns headed "-More American 
Wit:' 

Yezimon, on leaving the ship where he had been so 
handsomely entertained, remarked that he hoped he 
would have the opportunity of reciprocating the cour- 
tesies which had been shown them, when the friend- 
ship (treaty) had been made ; they would then see 
more of us, and we more of them and their towns. As 
customary, they left a number of little presents, con- 
sisting of confections in small wooden boxes, and 
flowers, and little birds on miniature trees, made with 
shells. Their specimens of spun-glass did not equal 
.in whiteness and fineness what we see at home. 

While at dinner, they laid aside their two swords. 
I had a very good opportunity of examining them in 
the cabin of the Mississippi. The Damascus may not 
equal them ; but they evinced much surprise when I 



JAPANESE SWORDS. 221 

showed them the temper of this far-famed blade, by 
an engraving, in which the point of one appeared so 
bent as to be put through the guard. The Japanese 
blade is of the most magnificent steel ; it has the back 
shaped like that of a razor, and the edge is equally 
as sharp, and so highly polished that they look black 
instead of bright, and the breath disappears from 
their surface, as from the face of the finest mirror. 
The hilts were without " basket" of any kind, and 
about a foot in length, intended to be grasped, when 
in use, with both hands. They were covered with the 
skin of the shark, or the corrugated plaice, wrapped 
in silk cord in diamond shapes, and ornamented with 
amulets in the shape of small animals, made of gold, 
boxwood, red coral, or bronze. The guard, which 
was a circle of bronze, was decussated, and frequently 
had an image of a fly entangled in a web. The blade 
has little curve, and is contained in a scabbard of 
wood finely lacquered, and ornamented with purple 
cord. 

The Japanese interpreter present spoke English 
tolerably ; said he had learned it from an American 
at Nangasaki, but took good care not to mention that 
this American was one of the sailors whom the United 
States ship Preble took from them in 1849, who had 
been held by them in captivity. They were very 
desirous of getting dictionaries and grammars in Eng- 
lish. They were offered a passage to the United 
States in one of the steamers ; they said '' No ; they 



222 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

would come when they could build ships" — indica-. 
ting the three masts with their fingers, and the yards 
by crossing them. Two of the party ascended as high 
as the main-top. 

The houses on shore progressed, and were being 
built without any palisade enclosure, as had been 
agreed on. On the 4th of March we had a slight fall 
of snow, and the air was cool. The Japanese, with 
the ships' casks, brought off in their boats, from some 
place of their river, water to fill our tanks. They 
brought two kinds, and desired us to choose between 
them. Everything in Japan having any connection 
with strangers, is deemed a matter of such import- 
ance, that the water-boats were always accompanied 
by others with municipal officials. They were en- 
tertained with cakes and tea and wine ; and were 
quite curious in examining each portion of the ship. 
They did not understand why we should have brought 
so many vessels. They told us that the Russian 
squadron had been at Nangasaki, and left there on 
the 12th of February. At that time they declared 
their intention of making a treaty with the " Amer- 
ican States" alone. They would present their fans 
on which they desired some sentiment to be written, 
and many of them took away the marginal aphorisms 
of a pocket-dictionary. Their own cards were pre- 
sented, written perpendicularly on strips of paper, 
such as Mr. Olee-ke-ehay-suo, or Mr. To-ta-ro-sa-koo- 
ka. They were very polite in writing names in Jap- 



AVERSION TO THE CROSS. 223 

anese characters in our books. I requested one to 
write a name on the title-page of a Book of Common 
Prayer, which happened to have a steel engraving of 
the cross upon it. He had dipped his camel's-hair 
pencil into his portable inkstand, passed the point 
through his lips, and was about to write when his 
eye rested upon the cross ; he instantly shook his 
head, threw the book upon the table, nor could he be 
induced to touch it again. 

Some of the officers who visited the shore near the 
buildings, brought flowered branches of the wild Ca- 
mellia Japonica, which is native here. Upon being 
put on the table near a stove, they sent forth a pleas- 
ant perfume. The leaf here is of the deepest and 
most lovely green ; but the flower, though as large, 
had not the same delicacy of petal — perhaps owing 
to exposure to the cold winds — as the same flower, 
after hot-house nurture, in the United States. 

On the 6th of March a mariner died on the Missis- 
sippi of an afifection of the brain. The sloop-of-war 
Saratoga, after a boisterous passage from Shanghae, 
and being blown off from the mouth of the bay of 
Yedo, arrived and anchored in the line. This drop- 
ping in of the ships and the subsequent arrival of an- 
other, the Japanese did not understand, and perhaps 
thought with Macbeth : — 

" Will the line stretch out to the crack o'doom." 

The 8th of March had been selected for the lalid- 
ing of the commodore to meet the Japanese coainiis- 



2241 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

sioners at Yokohama, but there was very little of the 
excitement or interest felt in this landing, that at- 
tached to the first, in July preceding, except on the 
par)b of those from the ships, that had not been to 
"Japan on the previous occasion. Then there was 
some doubt and uncertainty; the Japanese might 
or might not attempt the Golownin game on us ; 
they say now, they were prepared for us then as 
enemies, they now receive us as friends : besides this 
we had now taken exactly the measurement of their 
foot, and our force was treble as great. 

The following memorandum order was issued : — 

On the first landing of the commodore to meet the Japanese com- 
missioners, he will be escorted by all the marines of the squadron, 
who can be spared from duty. 

Major Zeilin will make the necessary ai-rangement. 
' -The bands of music from the Powhatan, Susquehanna, and Missis- 
sippi, will be in attendance. 

Four boats will be sent from each of the steamers and the Macedo^ 
nian, carrying forty seamen in addition to the boats' crews, and their 
proportion of marines and musicians. ^ 

Three boats from the Yandalia, to carry thirty men as above. 

One boat from each of the storeships to assist in carrying th© 
marines, &c., on share. 

Half of the captains to remain on aboard. Those who land will 
leave the first lieutenant in charge of the ship. There will be sub- 
seG(uent opportunities for all to land who wish it. 

Three officers from each ship can join the escort. 

The officers to be in undress-uniform, frock-coats, cap, swords, 
epaulets, and pistol. 

The men armed v/ith musket, sword!, and pistol, and dressed in 
bluejackets and trowsers, and white fi'ocks. 

The musicians armed with sword and pistol;^ and all ta be provided 
with musket or pistol cartridge-boxes. ' •. 



THE LANDING. 225 

All boat-guns to be mounted and ammunition in boats. i 

A list of the officers, who are to land, is to be furnished to the 
captain of the fleet, by 10 A. M., on Monday 6th inst. / 

Senior officer landing to take command and confer with captain^ 
the fleet. 

An ofiicer to be in charge of the men from each ship, and one m 
charge of each boat. These officers are not to leave the boats, nor 
quit their divisions of men. 

If the boats are likely to be overcrowded, the numbers of the crew 
may be reduced. 

About 11 o'clock in the morning of the Sth, prep- 
aration being complete, twenty-nine boats of the dif- ^ 
ferent ships, with officers and ,crews armed and equip- 
ped agreeably to the order, were formed in a line 
abreast according to rank of commanders, and pulled 
ashore, presenting a beautiful sight. The number , 
landing, including officers, was about five hundred. 
The commodore not long after, left the flag-ship in a 
white barge, under a minister's salute of seventeen x 
great guns from the Macedonian, he going ashore in. ,^ 
the capacity of " Special Ambassador." On reaching 
the beach, as before, he was received by his officers, 
and with American national airs from the bands. The 
column of escort was then formed, and all marcheH , 
to the reception-house — a short distance. A large 
field around the buildings had been screened off with 
striped cotton cloth, of black and white, while the 
common people of the -village were kept back by^ 
ropes, extending from a growth of fine trees to the 
water's edge. A Japanese guard of honor v/ith lances, " 
were drawn up on the right in rear of o^Jine of; 

10^ : 



226 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

marines and sailors, and a cordon of the sharp gov- 
ernment boats lined the beach to the left. 

The high officers, who had been appointed to treat 
with Commodore Perry, were : 

Hayashi Daigaku, no-kami; chief commissioner to 
form the treaty, and member of council. 

Ido, Prince of Tsu-Sima, second commissioner. 

Izawa, Prince of Mima Said, third commissioner. 

Tsudzuki Suruga, no-kami. Prince of Suruga, fourth 
commissioner. ^ I 

Udono, Mimbu Sheyoyu, member of board of rev- 
enue, fifth commissioner. 

Takenoiichi Shitaro, member of board of revenue, 
sixth commissioner. 

Matsusaki Michitaro, seventh commissioner. 

The chief Japanese interpreter was Moriyama 
Yenoske, and Hori Tatsnoske, and Namura Golia- 
cliiro, were two other interpreters. '^ No-kami" means 
a very learned man ; one into whose head no more 
information can be gotten. 

The first, second, third, fifth, and seventh commis- 
sioners acted. 

On entering the hall, the commodore was received 
by the five commissioners. The party being seated, 
the flag of Japan was run up on board the Powhatan, 
and saluted with twenty-one guns from the launches, 
after which another salute of seventeen guns was 
given to the Japanese high commissioners, which the 
Japanese say, they took as a great compliment. 



THE AUDIENCE. 227 

The room of reception and audience was in a white 
pine-building, unpainted. You entered by a flight of 
three steps. On either side the room was lighted 
through white oiled paper in the plate of glass, 
placed in frames resembling sash-work. The extreme 
end of the room was concealed by a large blue flag, 
having in its centre in white, tlie Japanese coat-of-arms, 
composed of three quarter-moons, whose horns unite 
so as to form a circle, around which at intervals, was 
entwined a small wreath. The walls of the entrance 
were covered with paper screens, having on them 
the Japanese deified or sacred bird, the crane, perched 
on leafless trees. The floor was covered with mats, 
or rather straw-cushions, they being some three 
inches thick, bound on the edges, and very springy, 
when walked on. Along the entire length of the room, 
were placed low benches for seats, in front of which 
nearly as low, were narrow tables covered with red 
cotton cloth. The temperature of the room was 
regulated by charcoal in full heat, placed in copper- 
pans as '^ braziers," resting in lacquered stands with 
gilt and ornamental legs, distributed along the centre 
of the floor. The company being seated — the Ameri- 
cans on the left and the Japanese functionaries on 
the right, the Japanese interpreter received a mes- 
sage from his prince, with his nose about two inches 
from the matting, and then dragging or sliding himself 
a la Turk by the use of his arms, to where the com- 
modore was seated, told Mr. Portman, his clerk, in 



228 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Dutch, to say to the commodore, that tlie prince was 
glad to see him, and hoped his health was better. 
This civility was returned in like manner. They then 
went to business : they desired to know what number 
of persons the commodore wished to have retire with 
him in the conference : commodore said, he wished a 
room for five, and named the captain of the fleet, Mr. 
S. W. Williams of Canton, author of the ''Middle 
kingdom," his son — his secretary, and Mr. Port- 
man, who interpreted in Dutch. They retired into 
another room in the rear, whose entrance was con- 
cealed by a purple flag. The interview lasted some 
three hours, during which time the following answer 
to the president's letter was received : — 

The return of your Excellency as Ambassador from the United 
States to this Empire, has been expected, according to the letter of 
his Majesty the President; which letter your excellency delivered 
last year to his Majesty the Emperor of Japan. It is quite impos- 
sible to give satisfactory answers at once to all the proposals of your 
government, since those points are most positively forbidden by the 
laws of our imperial house ; but for us to continue bigotedly at- 
tached to the ancient laws, seems to misunderstand the spirit of the 
age, and we wish rather to conform to what necessity requires. 

At the visit of your excellency last year, his Majesty, the former 
Emperor, was sick, and is now dead. Since his Majesty, the present 
Emperor, has ascended the throne, the many occupations demanding 
liis care, in consequence thereof are not yet finished, and there is no 
time to settle other business thoroughly ; moreover, his Majesty the 
new Emperor, at his accession to the throne promises to the Princes 
and high officers of the Empire to observe the laws. It is therefore 
evident, that he can not now bring about any alteration in the ancient 
laws. 



PRELIMINARY NEGOTIATIOKS. 229 

Last Autumn at the departure of the Dutch ship, the superintend- 
ent of the Dutch trade in Japan, was requested to inform your gov- 
ernment of this event, and a reply in writing has been received. 

At Nangasaki, the Russian Ambassador recently arrived to com- 
municate a wish of his government ; he has since left that place, be- 
cause no answer would be given to any nation that might communi- 
cate similar wishes. 

However, we admit the urgency, and shall entirely comply with the 
proposals of your government, concerning, wood, water, provisions, 
and the saving of ships and their crews in distress. After being in- 
formed, which harbor your Excellency has selected, that harbor shall 
be prepared, and this preparation, it is estimated, will take about five 
years. Meanwhile a commencement can be made witli the coal at 
Nangasaki by the beginning of the next Japanese year [10th of Febru- 
ary, 1855]. 

Having no precedent with respect to coal, we request your Excel- 
lency to furnish us with an estimate, and upon due consideration this 
will be complied with, if not in opposition to our laws. What do 
you understand by provisions 1 and how much coal ? 

Finally, anything ships may be in want of, that can be furnished 
from the productions of this Empire shall be supplied ; the prices of 
merchandise and articles of barter to be fixed by Kuro-kawa Kahei, 
and Moriyama Yenoske. After settling the point before mentioned, 
the treaty can be concluded, and signed at the next interview. 

Seal attached by order of the Imperial Commissioners. 

(L. S.) Moriyama Yenoske. 

Kayei, 7th year, 1st moon, 26th day. 
[Febraary 23d, 1854.] 

The commissioners expressed themselves prepared 
to commence discussions upon the various points con- 
tained in the letter from the president, presented 
last year, and also to receive any further propositions 
that the commodore might wish to make — that in 
the determination of the emperor to make some 



230 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

modification in their laws of seclusion, he relied upon 
the friendly disposition of the Americans toward 
Japan ; and as such negotiations were entirely novel 
to them, they would trust with confidence to the com- 
modore's superior experience, to his generosity, and 
his sense of justice. 

Commodore Perry was fully satisfied on all points 
suggested by him, which were in accordance with 
Mr. Webster's letter of instructions to Commodore 
Aulick, accompanying the first letter to the emperor. 
A draft treaty, in English, Dutch, Chinese, and Jap- 
anese, was put into the hands of the Japanese com- 
missioners, who said that it would receive due con- 
sideration ; but the old emperor had died since Com- 
modore Perry was there last year, and his successor 
was a young man, who would require to consult his 
council before coming to a determination, and the 
commodore was reminded that the Japanese did not 
act with the same rapidity as Americans did. 

After these preliminaries had been gotten through, 
the commodore made known to the commissioners, 
that a man had been dead on the Mississippi for two 
days, and he desired to know, whether he could not 
bury him on an island lower down the bay, which Ave 
had already surveyed, and called after the great 
statesman, " Webster Island." They objected strong- 
ly to this, and said, if we would deliver the body to 
them at Uraga, some twenty-six miles below, that they 
would have it safely conveyed to Nangasaki on the 



A JAPANEST EEPAST. 231 

island of Kiusu, a distance of five hundred miles, 
and there inter it in the burying-groundj which they 
have allowed the Dutch. The commodore would not 
consent to this, when they agreed to permit the burial 
on shore just abreast of our anchorage. They said, 
they would have the spot fenced in ; most probably be- 
cause hereafter it would be tabooed ground with them. 

When the commissioners and commodore retired, 
the officers of the escort, who remained, were treated 
with tea and confections. After these thin-cooked 
meats, some bearing great favor to fried snakes, cut 
in slips so thin that the hinges of one's jaw would 
become tired, long before his appetite became satis- 
fied, were placed before them on lacquered plates. 
This repast produced much disappointment with the 
officers ; they liad paid two official visits to the prince- 
regent of Loo-Choo island — a dependency of Japan, 
and on one occasion were entertained by him with as 
many as thirteen difi'erent soups at one feast, and 
arguing from " man to master," they anticipated 
twenty-six different kinds of soups, when they got their 
knees under Japanese pine. To those who were sharp- 
set, the entertainment of Timon of Athens could not 
have been much less satisfactory. 

Equi-distant on the tables, were lacquered trays 
supported with feet, on which were placed of the 
same material, heavy ornamental silver '' tea-pots.'' 
containing saki, while the tea was served in thin- 
lacquered cups, resting — to keep the heat from 



232 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

the hand — on circular pieces of bamboo, resembling 
the dice-box of a backgammon-board. The Japan 
lacquer — and this being a part of the ''service" of 
royalty, must have been a fair specimen of it, did not 
strike me as being incomparably superior to that of 
the Chinese, as I had supposed. 

When tlie repast was concluded some Japanese 
amateur-artists from Yedo, who had come down from 
the city in tlie suite of the commissioners, made crayon 
sketches of many of the officers, and seemed to labor 
under the impression, that the only thing necessary 
to make a good American portrait was to draw a 
large nose, and sketch the balance of the features 
around it. Their essays at representing flowers — 
the Japonica for instance, were much better. 

While on shore, I took the opportunity of making 
a closer inspection of the Japanese troops, who were 
standing in line in a neighboring field. They did not 
present as good an appearance as when drawn up at 
Gorihama, the year before. They did not seem as 
athletic as the Tartar troops I saw at the fort back 
of Canton, or at Shanghae ; and it appears to me, 
that even if they were armed with the percussion- 
musket, or the modern Minie rifle, instead of the anti- 
quated matchlock, old Dutch muskets, &c., as they are, 
still their unsoldierly costume, would prevent, that 
freedom and quickness of movement, and celerity in 
the use of offensive weapons, that now-a-days consti- 
tute effective troops. 



I.EARNING ENGLISH, 233 

In my limited reconnoissance, I took occasion to 
pull some of the family Camellia Japonicas, that 
were growing wild. One of the two-sworded gentry 
seeing me standing near the beach, with a bmich in 
my hand, desired to know the name of the flower in 
'' American." Upon being told he repeated the word 
until he got our pronunciation quite accurately, and 
then wrote it down in a small soft-paper book with a 
camel's hair pencil, they always going provided with 
these, together with a small bronze ink-holder, and a 
handle to contain the pencil, at a short distance not un- 
like a small pipe, with the bowl downward. I retorted 
his question and requested the name of the flower in 
" Nip-pon," as they called their country. He said, 
" T'su-bi-ki." The "illustrious stranger" — wearied 
me more than himself with the number of his queries. 
I had to catalogue nearly every article in my ward- 
robe in English for him, which he invariably noted 
down. Upon showing him my watch, he pronounced 
the word '' chronometer" quite plainly ; and on es- 
pying when the case was opened, my name engraved 
on the back, he wanted to know what it was. 
Touching myself I pronounced my name, which he 
wrote down, but hardly succeeded in repeating. They 
can not say " 1," but call it " r." The word '' glove," 
which they call '^ grove," is too much for them. 

In the interview, the subject of supplying us with 
coal was broached, which they gave a favorable 
response to, and promised to have some specimen. 



234 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

of what coal they had, ready for inspection in a short 
time. This contrasted strongly with the dissimu- 
lation practised by them during the stay of the 
" Preble" at Nangasaki in 1849. Then, those Jap- 
anese who came on board, affected the greatest 
curiosity in looking at the coal in the armorer's 
forge ; they were much surprised at the heated rocks, 
and one of them asked permission to take ashore 
a piece of the coal, which he carefully wrapped in 
paper. 

The next day Japanese officials were aboard of the 
Mississippi, and held interviews there with the captain 
of the fleet, with regard to furnishing fresh provis- 
ions to the ships. 

During the forenoon, the mayor of Uraga, and the 
interpreter and other officials came aboard, and ac- 
companied the men sent to dig the grave for the 
man who had died, to point out the spot on shore. 
The burial, which took place some hours after, with 
the consent of the authorities who were standing by, 
and in the presence of thousands of the population, 
accompanied with the religious service of Christians, 
was an event of much significance, when the inscrip- 
tion that was put by the Japanese over the massacred 
Christians at Simabara is recollected : " So long as 
the sun shall warm the earth, let no Christian be so 
-bojd as to come to Japan ; and let all know that the 
king of Spain himself, or the Christian's God, or the 
great God of all, if he violates this command, shall 



THE CHAPLAIN. 235 

pay for it with his head." The settled oppugnation 
to Christianityj of more than two hundred years, was 
broken through with this burial from an American 
man-of-war. 

Not having been present at the interment, I am in- 
debted, for an account of it, to the chaplain of the 
Mississippi — a man of great energy of character, 
and who, in addition to his clerical duties on board 
ship, occupied himself with literary labor, and with 
an indomitable perseverance and love for scientific 
discovery, during the whole cruise, at every hour 
of the night, addressed himself to the task of observ- 
ing the various phases of what has been called the 
zodiacal light ; and to his midnight labor and zeal, 
the astronomical world may yet be indebted for d 
solution of the vexed question about this light. 

" Our preparations were for an interment exactly 
after our usual method upon the occasiori of the burial 
of a marine. A great many of the officers would have \ 
liked to have gone, and some applied for permission ; 
but it was thought best to give the occasion no un- 
usual eclat, while at the same tipae nothing was to be 
omitted. 

" About three o'clock, after ' all hands ' had been 
called to ' bury the dead,' and the chaplain had read- 
from the gangway the customary passage of the 
Scripture, we left the ship in two boats, with the 
flags at half-mast ; the first contained Captain Slack of 
the marine corps, assistant-surgeon Lynah, an'd myself, 



236 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

in uniform and gown ; and the other boat having the 
dead body, with a guard of honor, consisting of a cor- 
poral and six marines. We landed at a spot desig- 
nated — a quarter of a mile south of the landing-place 
of yesterday, and in front of a large village — Yoko- 
hama, the whole shore being lined with villagers who 
had come to gaze. The mayor of Uraga, interpreter, 
&c., received us there. I had expected that on their 
seeing me in my official costume, and first knowing 
that there was a Christian minister on their shore 
and among them, that there would be a recoil, and 
that they would shrink from me as from something 
poisonous. But there was no such thing. On the 
contrary, they came up successively and gave me 
their hand for a shake. (They have learned our salu- 
tation, and seem to be fond of it). The interpreter, 
pointing to my prayer-book, asked if itVas for cere- 
monies over the dead, and smiled as before, when I 
told him that it was. The marines were formed in 
line and received the body with presented arms, when 
the procession was formed and moved on : marines 
with reversed arms ; fife and muffled-drum playing 
the Dead March ; the chaplain ; coffin borne by four 
marines ; their captain, surgeon, hospital-steward, and 
six or eight sailors. Our way lay through the vil- 
lage, and the occasion seemed to excite quite a holy- 
day among them ; everybody, men, women, and chil- 
dren, running and gaining good places for seeing, and 
squatting down on the ground till we had passed. 



THE FUNERAL. 237 

when they would run and gain another place for ob- 
servation if they could. The street through which 
we passed was, however , kept clear, and at intervals 
I noticed new boards stuck up, with inscriptions, 
probably to warn people from intruding on our way. 
But the people, even women and children, showed no 
fear nor any hesitation in coming near us, or in being 
seen themselves ; and some shops that we passed 
were kept open as usual. I saw myself often pointed 
out, being doubtless recognised by my gown and book 
as the clergyman of the party, but it was without any 
exhibition of displeasure on their countenance ; but 
as they would look at any other curiosity. I saw one 
woman hold up her little child to see me, and the 
thought passed through my mind that, if it should 
live to maturity, it would probably see many wonder- 
ful changes in Japan. 

" Our way led quite through the village, at the fur- 
ther end jof which, on a wooded hill at our left, was a 
temple with two different flights of steps leading up 
to it, and ornamented gateways below. Through 
the further of these gateways, I now saw a Buddhist 
priest in his officiating costume emerge, and perceived 
that he took his way toward some fresh earth — the 
grave, a little beyond. 

" They had selected for the interment a very pretty 
spot about a hundred yards from the village, a6d 
closely adjoining an old burying-ground of their own. 
We found the Buddhist priest seated there, but he 



238 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

attempted no interference with our religious ceremo- 
f nies, wliich I commenced (all uncovering) 5 as we ap- 
proached the grave. 

'' The scene, at this time, was an exceedingly inter- 
esting one ; even. apart from its being the first break- 
ing through of the 'Japanese settled opposition to 
Christianity. The hills here formed a semi-circular 
sweep, and at one end of the semicircle we were 
standing. On the opposite side, on the heights above, 
was the Buddhist temple. The sides of these hills, and 
the whole sweep of the crest were covered with 
people, quiet, and attentive spectators of. what was 
going on. 

'^ Close to us stood the Japanese oflBcials, just below 
the grave. The marines in line on the other side, 
and near them on a mat sat the old Buddhist priest, 
with a little table before him, on which were a num- 
ber of papers, &c., with incense burning in their 
midst. Everybody was quiet and attentive while we 
went through our usual service for the solemn burial 
of the dead. Then the marines fired three volleys 
over the grave. As the first volley was given there 
^as a half shout on the hills around, as if giving 
vent to deep observation and pent-up curiosity, the 
.number of which was computed by one of our officers 
at two thousand. 

'' While they were filling up the grave, I asked per- 
mission to examine their burying-ground, which they 
readily gave, the interpreter also going with me and 



JAPANESE CEMETERY. 239 

explaining the several parts. Against the side of the 
hill is a range of sculptured stones, which he said 
were their gods ; some had bas-reliefs of figures like 
human beings on them. Across the space were lines 
of small head-stones — some of these also with human 
figures sculptured in bas-relief on their front, others 
with inscriptions. These were commemorative of 
individuals buried below ; and when I observed to~ 
the interpreter that the space for each body was very 
small, he replied that the dead in Japan were buried 
in. Si sitting posture, 

" I then went down to the Buddhist priest, a vener™ 
ablWooking man of about seventy-five years of, age, 
who was very friendly and showed me his rosary, half 
of the beads in which were glass, and half wood ; also 
his book. 

" The interpreter opened the papers and showed us 
their contents, and stated that the Buddhist had come 
there ' as ai compliment to Mr. Williams ' (Wil- 
liams having been the name of the deceased). On 
the little table, in addition to the incense-box, and 
some rolls of unknown material and paper, were also 
a bowl of cooked rice, a covered vessel filled with 
saki, and a small gong. The priest now commenced 
his ceremonies, sometimes touching the gong, some- 
times stirring the saki; while he thumbed his beads,, 
and then mufiling his hands in his robe and bowing 
his head, he read some prayers in a low, unintelligi- 



\. 



240 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

ble voice. His outer dress was a pouch of very rich 
brocade silk covered with fanciful figures. 

'^ After putting head and foot boards with inscription 
to the grave, and covering it in our usual manner, we 
left the Buddhist priest still engaged at his ceremo- 
nies and set out on our return, the crowds gathering 
around as before, and all very civil and polite, so 
with drum and fife playing we returned to our 
boats." 

Conferences were now held daily, and negotiations 
progressed slowly, but harmoniously. 

It was agreed that everything oflScial, that trans- 
pired at these interviews, should be committed to 
writing that nothing might be misunderstood, nor 
retracted. 

On the days of assembling, an imperial barge with 
a canopy and gandy streamers, moving like the stately 
boat of some Doge, towed by a number of boats, con- 
veyed the high commissioner and suite from Kana- 
gawa to the place of meeting. 

Among the presents intended for the emperor was 
a small railroad-track, with locomotive-tender, car, 
ifec, and a magnetic telegraph, which were .erected 
and put in operation on shore. 

These excited a great deal of interest among the 
Japanese, particularly the latter, when they were 
made to comprehend its utility in the transmission of 
intelligence. Communications were made in their 
presence in the English, Japanese, and Dutch Ian- 



THE PRESENTS. 241 

guages. They were also delighted with the railroad, 
when they saw the engine and car flying rctund the 
track at the rate of twenty miles an hour, but thought 
it would be impossible to construct them to advantage 
in Japan owing to the very uneven surface of the 
country. 

Nearly two centuries ago, the Jesuits in China see- 
ing how necessary the protection of the government 
was for their propagandism, made a number of things 
to amuse and excite the curiosity of the emperor 
Kang-hi, One of .their inventions resembled the 
modern locomotive, though on the Ericsson plan ; it 
was made, like the locomotive presented to the em- 
peror of Japan, at Yokohama, to run in a circle also. 
In the large old folio history of China, from the 
French of Du Halde, printed in London one hundred 
and nineteen years ago (a copy of which is in the 
possession of John V. L. M^Mahon,Esq., of Baltimore), 
I find the following : — 

" The Pneumatick Machines also, did not less excite 
the Emperor's curiosity : 

'' They caused a Waggon to be made of light Wood 

about two Foot long : in the middle of it they placed 

a Brazen Vessel full of live coals, and upon that an 

JEolipile, the wind of which came down through a 

little Pipe upon a sort of a wheel made like the sails 

of a Wind mill ; this little wheel turned another with 

an Axle tree, and by that means set the Waggon in 

Motion for two hours together. But lest room should 

11 



242 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

be wanting to proceed constantly forward it was con- 
trived to move circularly." 

Negotiations having progressed harmoniously, on 
the 13 th of March launches were sent alongside of the 
storeships, and the presents for the Japanese being 
put in them, the captain of the Macedonian with a 
suite of officers, pulled ashore, and delivered them 
pro forma to the authorities. They were afterward 
pleasantly entertained by them. The Japanese must 
have formed a rather exaggerated opinion of the 
quantity of the presents intended for them by the 
Americans — judging from the size of the room set 
apart for their reception. They were given to under- 
stand that these were tokens of amity, not a tribute. 

The presents for the emperor consisted of, among 
other things : — 

A railway with steam-engine ; a magnetic tele- 
graph ; a surf-boat ; a life-boat ; a printing-press ; a 
fine lorgnette ; a set of Audubon's American Orno- 
thology, splendidly bound ; plates of American In- 
dians ; maps of different states of America ; agricul- 
tural implements, with all the modern improvements ; 
a piece of cloth ; a bale of cotton ; a stove ; rifles, 
pistols, and swords ; champagne, cordials, and Amer- 
ican whiskey. 

And for the empress (presuming there was one) : — 

A telescope ; a lorgnette in a gilded case ; a lady's 
toilet-box, gilded ; a scarlet velvet dress ; a change- 
able silk dress flowered ; a splendid robe ; Audubon's 



THE PRESENTS. 243 

illustrated works ; a handsome set of China ; a man- 
telpiece clock ; a parlor stove ; a box of fine wines ; 
a box of perfumery ; a box of fancy soaps. 

Among the presents, perhaps the one most valued, 
was a copy of Webster's complete dictionary, to the 
imperial interpreter. To the high officers were given 
books, rifles, pistols, swords, wines, cloths, maps, 
stoves, clocks, and cordials, the latter of which they 
fully appreciated ; and as regards clocks, when it was 
proposed to bring an engineer from shipboard to set 
them agoing, the Japanese said there was no occasion 
for that, for they had clockmakers in Tedo who un- 
derstood them perfectly. They were curious to know, 
however, if Ericsson's caloric engine, of which they 
had heard, had been successful. There were also 
given them a quantity of Irish potatoes, and an hy- 
draulic-ram. 

We had now been lying in their waters a month ; 
the necessity for the reference of many things to 
Yedo, caused the negotiations to drag their weary 
length along. Diplomatizing may have been all very 
well for those engaged in it, and getting a munch of 
something fresh the while on shore, but the enchant- 
ment lent to those confined on board and compelled 
to watch proceedings with a spy-glass, or take exer- 
cise on a hurricane-deck, was very slight indeed. 
The supply of eatables brought from China had dis- 
appeared ; ship's rations were ubiquitous upon the 
table ; and the appetite of an American exceeding, or at 



244 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

his ordinary meals consuming as much as four Japa- 
nese, the scanty supply of watery vegetables, a few 
pounds of fish, sweet potatoes, and chickens which 
had attained their majority, and upon whose muscu- 
lar thighs neither the molars nor incisors of the most 
assiduous masculine chewer could make any impres- 
sion — which negotiation obtained from shore — when 
distributed by signal from a storeship among a whole 
squadron, went but a little way. We were under- 
going all the annoyances of a state of siege, with- 
out any of its excitements. And ^' Oh ! it is sweet 
for one's country to die," — but not of short com- 
mons. 

The Japanese said they had no objection to the offi- 
cers going ashore to walk about the towns of Yoko- 
hama and Kanagawa, but trusted they would not for 
the present go further ; the people had not become 
used to strangers, and their presence might produce 
unnecessary excitement among them. 

The chaplain of the Susquehanna was ashore on the 
14th, and took a long stroll, not getting aboard until 
ten o'clock at night. Had he made the best of his 
time he might have had a sight of the city of Yedo, 
but he spent some two or three hours in going to and 
fro in Kanagawa, and an adjoining place, which en- 
abled the wily Japanese authorities time to communi- 
cate his whereabouts to the commodore, and to make 
complaint of it. He visited -the very populous city 
of Kanagawa, and also Kasacca. 



A chaplain's adventures. 245 

At a wave of the hand of the Japanese officials who 
accompanied him, the crowds of people opened a clear 
passage in the centre of the street for him. He en- 
tered some of the houses, which he found primitive in 
their furniture and arrangements, but, compared with 
other oriental dwellings of the same class, neat, clean, 
and comfortable. In some of them he observed clocks 
of Japanese manufacture. He also visited several 
temples, which though smaller than in China, have 
more gilding on their walls, and ornaments on their 
idols, and generally are in better order. The priests 
as well as the people were distinguished for their 
courtesy. 

The cities thus visited were not only very exten- 
sive (estimated to be six miles long), but had wide, 
well-formed streets. As he was returning, a Japanese 
officer put into his hands an order from the commo- 
dore for all officers to return on board, and shortly 
afterward a courier, mounted on a splendid black 
horse, delivered a similar despatch, and finding it was 
understood and acted on, turned round and galloped 
back again to report the approach of the American 
officer, who concluded his journey by torch-light, and 
found on his arrival that everything that had occurred 
had been noted, even the number of buttons on his 
coat being recorded. On his route he met the escort 
and train of some high functionary, supposed to num- 
ber some two thousand. They were supposed to be 
conveying to Yokohama the few presents which they 



246 THE japa:n expedition. 

said the emperor could only now send, for want of 
time to prepare others. 

The negotiations, which were interrupted by the 
equinoctial gale, were resumed on the 17th of March. 
The commodore wished them to give us three or four 
ports ; his squadron was a powerful one ; but if he 
carried back an unsatisfactory answer to his govern- 
ment it would send another and a larger one for a 
different purpose. The Japanese were willing to give 
us one port then, and another in five years ; they said 
they could not grant a port in the island of Tezo — 
hitherto called Matsmai — without consulting the 
prince of that department. To this, it was replied, 
"Give the port in the island of Niphon, and the 
squadron would go to see the prince of Matsmai." 

On the 19th of March the squadron was increased 
by the arrival of the storeship Supply, from China. 
She brought us the intelligence of a naval engage- 
ment between the Russians and the Turks ; but the 
disappoinment of many in not getting letters was 
great, and they thought 

Oh the troubles that do espan. 
The man who will go to Japan ! 

The Japanese having offered the harbor of Simoda, 
in the province of Idzoo, as one of the ports for 
American ships to visit, the Vandalia and Southamp- 
ton were sent down to that place, to make a recon- 
noissance, and to report upon its facilities of entrance, 
and capacity. The weather was raw, rough, squally, 



JAPANESE PRESENTS. 247 

and rainy. Agreeably to instructions from the gov- 
ernment, received before leaving China — a wise thing, 
as naval commanders are always very chary, and not 
at all disposed to -render any more facilities to the 
foreign diplomatic agents of the country, than they 
can help, on the 25th of the month, the steam-frigate 
Susquehanna left Japan for Hong Kong, to convey 
the new American commissioner to such of the Cinque 
ports as he desired to visit. 

On the same day there was a landing, not for pur- 
poses of negotiation, but for the reception of the 
presents from the Japanese, which consisted of lac- 
quered cabinets, desks, some silks, bags of rice, &c., 
not very numerous or at all comparable in use or 
value to those given them. On this occasion there 
was quite a number of officials present, who were 
compelled to manifest curiosity, when they saw tlic 
beautiful little locomotive, with its highly-finished 
rosewood car, complete in all the customary furniture, 
driven by a charcoal-fire alone, at a rate of a mile in 
three minutes, around a circular track of three hun- 
dred feet. The Americans were entertained with 
the contests in the ring of some Japanese athletes. 
These men were of great stature and much obesity, 
but their limbs displayed none of the angular mus- 
cularity, of a Monsieur Paul, lifting his cannon or 
resisting the draught of horses, or the pugilistic 
activity of the American Tom Hyers and Sullivans, 
who could no doubt whale them with little difficulty. 



248 



THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 



These men are in the pay of princes, and have such 
designations as '^ Giant of the North," &c. Their 
hair is gathered upon their head, as others of their 
country, though not shorn, perhaps to prevent their 
Samsonian qualities being affected. In front of their 
persons, which is otherwise unclothed, they wear a 
scarf, with the insignia of the prince they serve upon it. 
They commence with an exhibition of their strength, 
such as throwing with each hand over the shoulder, 
or lying on the ground, and somerseting with large 
straw-bags containing two hundred pounds of rice 
each. Then came the trial of the ring, not more 
than eight feet in diameter, and made of rice straw. 
Before commencing the combatants squatted and 
rubbed their knees, as if to assure themselves of 
their strength, and then rubbed a little dust under 
each arm, something like an infuriated cow, when 
she throws it on her back, and then with a grunt 
they closed, and though the claret was occasionally 
drawn, and great welts were raised upon the shoul- 
ders, yet there did not appear much of that belicosity, 
descriptions of which have graced some of the col- 
umns of the papers of our own country, since the in- 
fusion into it of Bill Poole blackguardism. The 
effort was rather to get one another out of the ring, 
when the effort ends. After being sufficiently amused 
at this intellectual display, the commodore and party 
returned aboard. 

Nearly every day, some of the Japanese officials 



THE JAPANESE COMMISSIONERS. 249 

came off to the flag-ship to arrange in the prepara- 
tion of the treaty, that matters might be facilitated 
during the formal interviews held ashore. Chief at 
such times, on their part, was Moriyama Yenoske,the 
imperial interpreter in the Dutch language ; indeed 
he was the man of the treaty, so far as the Japanese 
were concerned ; to his friendly regard to the Ameri- 
cans, his clear appreciation of propositions, and the 
accurate conveyance of them to the minds of the 
commissioners by his translations, we are much in- 
debted. 

On the 27th an entertainment was given to the 
commissioners on board of the flag-ship. It was the 
first time that the Japanese imperial flag floated from 
the mast-heads of foreign men-of-war. The guests came 
off about three o'clock in the afternoon. On passing 
the Mississippi they received a salute of seventeen 
great guns. They first went aboard of the Macedonian, 
when her crew were beat to general quarters, and the 
-broadside-guns of the ship, together with her large 
'' pivots," exercised before them. From here they 
went to the flag-ship Powhatan, but some of them, 
who had changed from their steady-moving boats, by 
invitation, to our buoyant and lively ones, did not 
have their appetites for the repast that awaited them, 
improved by the qualmy motion. On the Powhatan 
they were shown the exercise and rapid firing of the 
twelve-pounder howitzers, in which they appeared to 
take much interest. They then partook of a dinner, 

11* 



250 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

which had been spread for them : the commissioners 
dining with the commodore, and the rest of the 
company from tables spread nnder the awnings of the 
quarter-deck. The Japanese did full justice to the 
dishes before them, and when partaken to satiety, 
they aided the disappearance of the food, after the 
manner of their con itry, by wrapping up and taking 
away an occasional pie^ or sweetmeat of which they 
are very fond. Music from the band regaled the oc- 
casion, and as the hermetics drained their draughts 
of champagne and cordial down, they became very 
social, if not confidential, and proposed frequent senti- 
ments of friendship between '' Nipong" and America. 
"With such a people, John Barleycorn is very potent : 
particularly in treaty-making. At night on the fore- 
castle the Japanese witnessed a capital Ethiopic per- 
formance, at which they appeared much amused. 
Indeed their stoic gravity had pretty vfell left them 
before this hour, and one of them, during the evening, 
indulged in a polka under the hurricane-deck with a 
very intelligent midshipman. They left at an early 
hour for the shore, and after a salute from the Sara- 
toga, their flag was hauled down. One of the com- 
missioners had a fancy for, a large cake, which was 
given him by the commodore, together with some 
cordial, to be sent ashore the next day. During the 
night one of the orderlies at the cabin-door stole and 
made away with the cake. Not wishing to give the 
Japanese the bad idea of our men, that the mention 



THE TREATY. 251 

of this theft might produce, the diplomacy was re- 
sorted to of telling the Japanese, when presenting 
the wine, that it was an American custom to present 
cake in the evening ; by which time, another one had 
been made, and was sent ashore. 
' On the last day of March, the ships having gotten 
back from Simoda, and made their report as to that 
harbor, the commodore had his last official interview 
ashore, with the commissioners, at Yokahama, Kana- 
gawa, when after much difficulty, and talking, and 
debate as to the wording, the following treaty was 
signed : — 

The United States of America and the Empire of Japan, desiring to 
establish firm, lasting, and sincere friendship between the two na- 
tions have resolved to fix, in a manner clear and positive, by means 
of a treaty or general convention of peace and amity, the rules 
which shall in future be mutually observed in the intercourse of 
their respective countries, for which most desirable object the 
President of the United States has conferred full powers on his 
commissioner, Matthew Calbraith Perry, special ambassador of the 
United States to Japan, and the august sovereign of Japan has 
given similar full powers to his commissioners, Hayashi, Dai- 
gaku-nokami, Ido, prince of Tsus-Sima, Izawa, prince of Mima- 
saki, and Udono, member of the board of revenue. And the said 
commissioners, after having exchanged their said full powers, 
and duly considered the premises, have agreed to the following 
articles : 

ARTICLE I. 

There shall be a perfect, permanent, and universal peace and a 
sincere and cordial amity between the United States of America on 
the one part, and the empire of Japan on the other part, and between 
their people respectively, without exceptions of persons or places. 



252 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

ARTICLE II. 

The port of Simoda, in the principality of Idzu, and the port of 
Hakodade, in the principality of Matsmai, are granted by the Jap- 
anese as ports for the reception of American ships, where they can 
be supplied with wood, water, provisions, coal, and other articles their 
necessities may require, as far as the Japanese have them. The time 
for opening the first-named port is immediately on signing this treaty ; 
the last-named port to be immediately after the same day in the 
ensuing Japanese year. [Note. — A tariff of prices shall be given by 
the Japanese officers of the things which they can furnish, pajrment 
for which shall be made in gold and silver coin.] 

ARTICLE III. 

Whenever ships of the United States are thrown or wrecked on 
the coast of Japan, the Japanese vessels will assist them, and carry 
their crews to Simoda, or Hakodade, and hand them over to their 
countrymen appointed to receive them ; whatever articles the ship- 
wrecked men may have preserved shall likewise be restored, and the 
expenses incurred in the rescue and support of Americans and Japan- 
ese who may thus be throAvn upon the shores of either nation are not 
to be refunded. 

ARTICLE IT. 

Those shipwrecked persons and other citizens of the United States 
shall be free as in other countries, and not subject to confinement, but 
shall be amenable to just laws. 

ARTICLE V. 

Shipwrecked men and other citizens of the United States, tempo- 
rarily living at Simoda and Hakodade, shall not be subject to such 
restrictions and confinement as the Dutch and Chinese are at Naga- 
saki, but shall be free at Simoda to go where they please within the 
limits of seven Japanese miles (or ri) from a small island in the har- 
bor of Simoda, marked on the accompanying chart hereto appended ; 
and shall in like manner be free to go where they please at Hakodade, 
within limits to be defined after the visit of the United States squad- 
ron to that place. 



THE TREATY. 253 



ARTICLE VI. 

If there be any other sort of goods wanted, or any business which 
shall require to be arranged, there shall be careful deliberation between 
the parties in order to settle such matters. 

ARTICLE VII. 

It is agreed that ships of the United States resorting to the ports 
open to them shall be permitted to exchange gold and silver coin and 
articles of goods for other articles of goods, under such regulations 
as shall be temporarily established by the Japanese government for 
that purpose. It is stipulated, however, that the ships of the United 
States shall not be permitted to carry away whatever articles they 
are unwilling to exchange. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

Wood, water, provisions, coal, and goods required, shall only be 
procured through the agency of Japanese officers appointed for that 
purpose, and in no other manner. 

ARTICLE IX. 

It is agreed that if at any future day the government of Japan 
shall grant to any other nation or nations, privileges and advantages 
which are not herein granted to the United States and the citizens 
thereof, these same privileges and advantages shall be granted like- 
wise to the United States and to the citizens thereof, without any cou- 
sultation or delay. 

ARTICLE X. 

Ships of the United States shall be permitted to resort to no other 
ports in Japan but Simoda and Hakodade, unless in distress or forced 
by stress of weather. 

ARTICLE XI. 

There shall be appointed by the government of the United States 
consuls or agents to reside in Simoda, at any time after the expira- 
tion of eighteen months from the date of the signing of this treaty ; 
provided that either of the two governments deem such arrangement 
necessary. 



264 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

ARTICLE XII. 

The present convention having been concluded and duly signed, ^ 
shall be obligatory and faithfully observed by the United States of 
America and Japan, and by the citizens and subjects of each respec- 
tive power ; and it is to be ratified and approved by the President of 
the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate 
thereof, and by the august sovereign of Japan, and the ratification 
shall be exchanged within eighteen months from the date of the 
signature thereof, or sooner if practicable. 

In faith whereof, we, the respective plenipotentiaries of the United 
States of America and tlie empire of Japan aforesaid, have signed 
and sealed these presents. 

Done at I^anagawa this thirty-first day of March, in the year of 
our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, and 
of Kayei, the seventh year, third month, and tliird day. 

M. C. PEERY. 

'' The respective plenipotentiaries" did not sign. 

The night before the signing of the treaty, the of- 
ficials were aboard of the flag-ship until a very late 
hour, composing with great care the various prepared 
copies of the treaty, as they had been enrolled. In 
the Japanese copy they discovered an error in the 
formation of one character, which they desired to be 
altered to prevent as they said, any misconstruction 
hereafter. They did not understand the " ratifica- 
tion" of treaties : with them an obligation once 
signed, was full and complete, and they did not see 
any necessity for any supplementary action by the 
contracting parties. 

After the signing of the treaty the commodore in- 
timated his purpose of going up to Yedo and saluting 
the emperor ; if he could not reach the city in his 



I 



YEZIMON IN TROUBLE, 255 

steamers, he could in the ship's boats. To this they 
objected. They were told if they had objections, 
they should have included them in the treaty. 

This treaty, it will be seen, is not one of com- 
merce, but of friendship or amity. It is said that 
the Japanese had some objection to signing their copy 
with the words '^ Lord Jesus Christ" in it. It was 
understood, that Hakodade was not to be visited by 
the squadron, until fifty days had elapsed from the 
date of signing. 

•The Japanese were desirous of knowing from our 
fleet-captain, whether the English and the French were 
coming up to Japan, when the American squadron 
should have left : the answer was, we did not know. 

There was something rather mysterious about Ye- 
zimon, the little deputy-governor of Uraga. At the 
time of our first visit, he took quite a conspicuous part 
in all the intercourse, but on our return, it appears, 
he had to pale his ineffectual fire before greater lu- 
minaries. Very little was seen of him, indeed, if he 
was seen at all on our return. The great familiarity 
and sociability that he had displayed when on board 
of our ships had probably gotten him into trouble. 
The officials declined saying anything about him ; 
when he was asked for, and one of the officers in- 
formed them that he had a Colt's revolver which he 
desired to present to Yezimon before leaving, they 
said they had rather that it should not be done, and 
added, that they could not speak about him. 



256 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

On the 4tli of April, after an absence from the 
United States of over four years, the sloop-of-war 
Saratoga left for home. In her went as passenger 
Commander H. A. Adams, captain of the fleet — 
bearing to the United States, by way of the Sandwich 
Islands and the Californian route, copies of the treaty 
in English and Japanese, and three copies in Dutch 
certified to by A. L, C. Portman, Esq., and Moriyama 
Yenoske, intended to be the first intelligence home of 
the completion of the treaty. There also went home 
in her a number of invalid oflScers who had undergone 
the enervation, and emaciation produced by the heat 
and diseases of an East India climate. As the Sara- 
toga passed out she fired her parting salute, and was 
cheered by the remaining ships of the squadron, the 
bands playing " Home, Sweet Home !" in a manner 
that caused each heart to heave. Every one wlio 
thought of the long while she had been out, wislied 
fair winds to fill her sails, and Heaven speed her ! 

The interpreter, and others, continued their friendly 
visits to the ships, wearing when the weather was 
bad, a singular rain-cloak called meno^ made up of a 
number of tassels of a kind of mountain fern, pendent 
from the junction of meshes knit from the same mate- 
rial, and having outside a covering of green silk net- 
work. They would tell us in answer to the question 
'^ Could we now see the emperor ?" '' No ; too young 
man." They had told us that it would require some 
days before they could arrange a bazar at Simoda^ 



ATTEMPT TO REACH YEDO. 267 

where we might be able to procure specimens of their 
lacquer-ware, porcelain, &c. ; and in the meantime 
our surveying-boats, when the weather would permit, 
were kept constantly going. 

The 10th of April, being the birthday of the com- 
modore, I suppose he wished to signalize it by a 
nearer approach to the city of Yedo, and accordingly 
early in the morning a signal was thrown out for the 
squadron to get under way, which was done, the Mis- 
sissippi leading up the bay, and the Powhatan and 
the sailing ships following, with the exception of the 
Lexington, which got aground just as her anchor was 
away. This movement being perceived from shore, 
the Japanese interpreters Moriyama Yenoske, Hern- 
yama, Gohara, and Namura Gohachiro, third inter- 
preter, at once rowed off under much excitement. 
The latter came aboard of the Mississippi, the others 
went on board of the flag-ship ; where they ascer- 
tained the commodore's intention of going higher up 
the bay, Yenoske objected most strenuously, urging 
that the lives of each of the commissioners, and him- 
self, were in danger for not preventing (?) it, or re- 
monstrating against it; or previously advising their 
government ; they said they could not tell but it was 
not possible to calculate the consequences. In reply, 
the commodore said that his instructions from the 
president were to go up to Yedo, and that he would 
have done so, but for the feelings of friendship that 
he entertained for the commissioners who preferred 



258 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Yokohama for holding the conferences. They gave it 
to be understood that the anchoring of the ships off 
Yedo, would at once require of them the performance 
of the " Hari Kari," or happy despatch — that they 
would be necessitated to this, according to a custom 
which it was no use to argue against, to save them- 
selves and those related to them from dishonor ; and 
that such was the case with each of the commis- 
sioners. 

Hari Kari^ meaning " happy despatch," is the act 
of disembowelling one's self with a sword, among the 
Japanese. The young man, of any family pretensions, 
is early indoctrinated in the art of self-destruction. 
He is also instructed as to the occasions and circum- 
stances when this form of suicide is appropriate for a 
gentleman, either to preserve himself or those con- 
nected with him from dishonor. It is given him 
strictly in charge, to remember that the wearing of 
the badge of his position — two swords — is also typ- 
ical of his courage ; perhaps as Napoleon said, that 
he who cares nothing for his own life is master of that 
of others ; and that one of these swords, like the dag- 
ger of Brutus, is for himself, when his country shall 
need his death. He desires that it shall be said of 
him, what Malcolm says of Cawdor : — 

" Nothing in his life 
Became him like the leaving it : he died 
As one that had been studied in his death, 
To throw away the dearest thing he owed, 
As 'twere a careless trifle." 



THE interpreter's DISTRESS. 259 

Oi" as Dscitas said of Anthony : — 

" He is dead, 
By that self hand. 
Which writ his honor in the acts it did/' 

The commodore promised that the two steamers 
should only go up in sight of Yedo, and without drop- 
ping anchor, return. This quieted their apprehen- 
sions considerably. About twelve o'clock, when we 
had gotten a distant view of the great city, the water 
I suddenly shoaled so as to prevent our further prog- 
' ress, when the boats that had been sounding ahead 
were recalled, the steamers put about, and the whole 
squadron proceeded directly down the bay to the an- 
chorage off Nati Sima^ or as called by us, Webster 
island, with the exception of the Mississippi that was 
sent to the assistance of the Lexington, but that ship 
having kedged off, we towed her to where the remain- 
ing ships had anchored. 

Poor Namura Gohachiro, the third interpreter, who 
was aboard of us during the day's movements, looked 
the while like a man whose time had come. He evinced 
no interest in anything that was going on around 
him, and during the day did not look over the side. 
He complained of sickness, and Jamaica ginger gave 
him no relief ; he put aside his two swords, and lay 
on the cabin sofa ; his great inquietude lasted until 
we had dropped anchor off Webster island, when he 
experienced the greatest relief, going over the side 
into his boat, which we had towed during the day. 



260 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

looking like one from around whose neck the halter 
had been taken. 

The yearly number of those who now commit the 
Hari Kari, or '^ happy despatch," in Japan, is esti- 
mated at four hundred. 

The principal cause of the alarm of the Japanese 
officers, on the approach of the ships to Yedo, was in 
some anticipated outbreak on the part of its rabble, 
who must comprise a great number in a city of over 
fourteen hundred thousand inhabitants. These laz- 
zaroni have more than once threatened the stability 
of the government ; a huge unmanageable mob threat- 
ening destruction, and deaf to reason ; a horrid hydra 
easily moved, but controlled only with great power 
and force. The effect upon such a population of the 
novel sight of two large steamers off their city, who 
in addition to other engines of destruction, were be- 
lieved to have on board steam-guns, can be easily 
imagined, especially when the mob never expected to 
see such a sight again. Then, too, they are more 
eager after novelty because of having been kept in 
ignorance by the stringent laws against foreigners ; 
and they have been taught that they are beneath 
laws. 

Such is the intense curiosity of the Japanese char- 
acter, and the great rush to gratify it, that at one 
time, before the signing of the treaty, there was as 
many as seventy thousand people from all parts of 
the country, congregated in Kanagawa and its im- 



THE EMPEROR IN DISGUISE. 261 

mediate vicinity, eager to get a look at our ships, and 
endeavoring to get aboard. To furnish a pretext for 
their assemblage near the place of negotiations, many- 
resorted to the ruse of offering their services to the 
authorities, in the event of the negotiations with the 
Americans, taking a hostile turn. Many of the 
princes of the empire, anxious to see the ships and 
not being able to get permission or authority to do 
so, resorted to the plan of getting on board by going 
disguised in the suite of Moriyama Yenoske, the 
chief interpreter. On one occasion — April 4th — a 
number of Japanese gentlemen of rank, having ob- 
tained permission to visit the ships, it was surmised, 
and upon very good authority, that the young emperor 
himself had been aboard. His features would prob- 
ably not be known to one of his subjects outside of 
his immediate attendants or council. The boldness 
and tact with which' they manage nayboen matters 
is remarkable. The interpreters were always very 
cautious, and never committed themselves by giving 
information. A great many of the better class Jap- 
anese, who came aboard, were able to write, and some- 
times speak a little Dutch (Holland), and generally 
expressed themselves with much correctness. 

The next morning, after anchoring off Nati Sima^ 
the Macedonian was despatched to the Benin islands 
with some agricultural implements, and to look after 
some men, with orders to join us at Simoda. 

While our surveying boats were running their line 



262 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

of soundings, and triangulating in tlie vicinity of the 
anchorage, some of the officers, in other boats, paid 
visits to Webster island, which afforded a fine op- 
portunity for exercise, besides being a very pretty 
view. Before returning to the ships, we pulled into 
a number of little inlets and small bays near by. 
The hill-sides were well wooded, and the deep green 
of the thorough cultivation on terraces and steppes 
was delightful to the eye. In some obscure coves, 
were built stone piers for landing, and a number of 
junks had been beached, and tlieir owners were 
preparing them, or firing their bottoms, that the sea 
slime might be removed and their speed increased. 
In others, the fronts of large quarries of sandstone, 
and what appeared to be fuller's earth, approach the 
edge of the water. The latter was cut away in 
square blocks, leaving the face of the hills like the 
smooth masonry of a curtain-wall and bastion. 

On the morning of the 18th of April, the Van- 
dalia and Lexington having preceded us, the Pow- 
hatan and Mississippi steamed slowly out of the bay 
of Yedo, running a line of soundings from the ships 
as we went, after passing Sagama cape, the two 
ships stood over in the direction of Ohosima, that 
the bearings of that island might be taken, and then 
headed off southward and westward, leaving the bay 
of Kawatsu on our right hand. The volcano on Oho- 
rima was not in a state of eruption, as when we 
passed it three months before. We soon saw Cape 



THE STEAMERS. 263 

Idzoo, and by three o'clock were up with Rock island, 
that marks the month, and ran into the harbor of Si- 
moda. This place from having been visited in May, 
1849, by the English man-of-war Mariner, our own 
sailing ships, which preceded us, were no novelty to 
the people, but the approach of the Powhatan and 
Mississippi running in a straight line through the nar- 
i-ow entrance, filled the height on either side witli a 
throng, looking for the first time, and with wonder, 
on steamships. 



264 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SiMODA — in Japanese ^' Lowerfield" — situated in 
the principality of Idzoo, which occupies about the same 
latitudinal, though not isothermal lines — as our state 
of North Carolina, is a place containing a population 
of twenty thousand. The streets are narrow, though 
regularly laid out, and at their intersections have 
gates, which may be easily closed in the event of any 
emeute. At their points are also placed stone struc- 
tures, surmounted by little roofs protecting copies of 
the laws and municipal regulations so conspicuously 
posted, that all who run, may read. The houses, 
which are usually and ornamentally stuccoed in light 
blue and white diamond shapes, are nearly all of one 
story with parapets, and without chimneys. Between 
the parapets wires are stretched to prevent the bird, 
which '' by the hoarseness of its note doth indicate a 
crow," from alighting on the roofs. The Japanese 
certainly can't regard them as a bird of evil omen, 
from the great numbers that fill their streets. Per- 
haps they are kept from injury, for sanitary purposes, 
like one more ungainly, found in our southern cities. 



SIMOBA. 265 

There are a number of temples in and near the place, 
dedicated to different deities. Behind the town 
stretches a lovely level valley for some miles, through, 
which flows a little stream — Simoda gawa, and sur^ 
rounded on either side by towering bluff-hills, that 
make the resemblance very great to the scenery on 
the Potomac, at Harper's Ferry. From this stream, 
junks and ships are supplied with fresh water, and 
on its banks are built rice and grain mills, with un- 
dershot wheels, to turn which, the water is diverted 
from its course by a^rtificial excavations. The amphi- 
theatre of high hills that surround the place in 
other directions, is very thickly wooded, and presents 
a green and lovely prospect from the water. The 
town has about fifteen hundred houses, and it is won- 
derful to see how many people a Japanese town will 
hold. 

The harbor of Simoda, though of rather difficult 
access at times to sailing vessels, and subject to quite 
a heavy swell, when the wind blows from a southerly 
direction, is quite a secure one, after getting in. The 
entrance is narrow between high bluffs, but on passing 
inside, the water spreads into a fan-shaped bay, with 
a bight, on which the principal town of Simoda is 
situated, on the left hand, which place is not visible 
until reaching a central island. It is encompassed 
on every hand by high hills, bleak and uninviting in 
some patches, and others cultivated in terraced fields 
of rice and wheat, or clothed in the deep verdure of 

12 



266 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

the pine and other trees. Across the bay of Simoda 
about half a mile round a sweep of white level-shiny 
beach, on which the waves sullenly chafe, is a little 
fishing village, called Kakizaki, which also has its 
temples. Here was a spring possessed of sulphurous 
qualities ; and on the beach the ship's seines were 
hauled with some success. 

Having to remain at Simoda some time, a party 
under Lieutenant Maury was at once set at work to 
make a survey of the harbor. The oflBcers spent 
their time ashore in strolls through the town, visits to 
the temples, rambles into the country, occasionally 
taking a gun, though there was very little to kill. 
The people, when we landed, appeared glad to see 
us, and were always inclined to be sociable, but for 
the omnipresence of their police. They would gather 
around and examine the cloth of our clothes with 
much curiosity — particularly the old women — and 
the designs on our buttons. The remarkable and un- 
remitting espionage of the Japanese is everywhere 
shown. Should you give some peasant a button, even 
while apparently out of sight of any one, it will be 
most singular, if one of the of&cers does not return 
it to you before or after you are on shipboard again. 
At first our steps were dogged by the police wherever 
we went. This did not require much effort in the town, 
but when we struck into the country and climbed hills 
with thick and sharp undergrowth, these officers not 
being as well habited as ourselves to withstand brier 



GETTING RID OF SPIES. 267 

and thorn, their scratched legs usually paid the pen- 
alty. Besides this, their lazy habits had made them 
very indifferent pedestrians. In a walk of any length 
they generally broke down; they would rub their 
legs and beg us to return, but as we were not aware 
of having solicited the pleasure of their ' company , 
we declined compliance with their requests. The 
commodore complained to the acting chief magistrate, 
Kimakawa Kahei, of this practice of spying upon 
the movements of his oflBcers, and said, that if it 
were not stopped, he should recommend them each to 
take a stick with them, and stop it. They contended, 
that it was a precaution for our protection, the people 
not yet being accustomed to the sight of us. They 
were answered, that we felt ourselves quite competent 
for our own protection. 

After this, these gentry, if they attempted to fol- 
low, were driven back at once, and if they spied 
upon our movements at all, it was at such a distance, 
that their presence was not perceived by us. In a 
short time, the officers moved as freely in the area 
of country granted by the treaty — a radius of about 
sixteen English miles, as if they were in the United 
States. The chief objects of interest ashore to visit, 
are the Sintoo, Buddhist temples, and some smaller 
ones, dedicated to the tutelar deities of the soldiers, 
and the marines. The Japanese display great rural 
taste always in their locations, selecting the most pic- 
turesque, and at times, the most elevated spots for 



268 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

their erection. Attached to these temples are usu- 
ally kungwas^ or places, where the weary traveller 
may rest for the night, and get some tea and eatables 
from the attendant priests. A Sintoo temple just at 
the end of the principal street from the landing at 
Simoda, was the chief place for the holding of official 
interviews, and subsequently for bazars. It stood in 
the midst of a cemetery overhung by large trees, and 
steep boulders of granite. The spacious and level 
yard in front, was divided with stone crossings 
smoothly cut, and in it stood alone, a tower of Cyclo- 
pean masonry, in which was hung one of their sweet- 
toned bells. Their manner of striking, which is by 
a piece of green wood swung horizontally on the out- 
side of the bell, gives a delightful softness to the 
sound, while the proximity to the earth increases the 
distance at which it may be heard. The carving and 
. frieze work about tha'columns at the entrance to this 
temple are as elaborate and fantastic as can be ima- 
gined, while the little hydras and animal images 
perched upon the eaves and roof, are as numerous as 
on a Chinese Joss house. The interior is very plain, 
and the Sintooist worships no idol. Living here was a 
priest named Dosangee — his head entirely shorn. He 
was quite polite to us, and in return used to expect us 
to give him the pronunciation of some words in Eng- 
lish, which he was endeavoring to learn by the aid 
of an English and Dutch dictionary, which he had. 
He accompanied me through the temple. 



A SINTOO TEMPLE. 269 

In one part of the temple, the commodore, from the 
initials ''M. 0. P." on some boxes there seen, seemed 
to have had a room set apart. The altar, in the place 
of worship was very plain, and had incense burning 
on it. Its only ornaments consisted of bronze cast- 
ings representing their sacred crane on the back of a 
tortoise, and a small gilded elephant. There, of 
course, was the invariable accompaniment of Sintoo 
worship — a small mirror — an emblem of the soul's per- 
fect purity ; or, according to some, as plainly as the 
votary sees his own features in that mirror, so plainly 
do the mediatory spirits to whom he prays, see his 
spiritual and temporal wants. Such a style of wor- 
ship would scarcely answer for the belles of our land. 
As the devotee enters one of these temples he first 
drops a few '^ cash" (about the fifteenth of a cent) 
into a carefully-secured box at the door, then by 
shaking a lot of sleigh-looking bells hanging from a 
beam, attracts to his prayers the attention of his 
mediatory spirits, who only number some three thou- 
sand — these are the kami^ confreres of the spiritual 
emperor or mikado, and analogous to the saints of the 
catholics. 

The Sintoo mythology, also comprehends a god of 
war. On entering the grounds where one of these 
temples were located, we passed through a military 
barrack, where were a number of small stallions teth- 
ered from either cheek, wrong end foremost in their 
stalls, who grew quite indignant in their cavortings 



270 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

at our presence. On our approach they turned out 
their guard — three or four stupid-looking soldiers, 
with tin-basin looking hats, and the calves of their legs 
swathed in blue cotton cloth, upholding the insignia 
of rank of their chief, which were cruciform lances in 
coverings of shark-skin. In the building, we saw on 
the walls, offerings of swords and bows, from those 
who had deemed themselves miraculously preserved 
in battle. 

In the Mariners' temple we saw suspended from boards 
on the walls small queues of the Japanese seamen, who 
had undergone the imminent peril of shipwreck, to- 
gether with details of the particular storm, pictures 
of foundering junks, and the names of those who es- 
caped. The parting with this little pigtail of hair, 
the Japanese sailor thinks is one of the greatest sac- 
rifices that he can make to his patron divinity. The 
approach to this place was over a fine balustraded 
bridge, and under a noble well-planted avenue of the 
yew-pine tree. Another yasiro^ on a mountain-side is 
reached by a direct and continuous flight of over a 
hundred steps. Over at Kakisaki^ in one of the tem- 
ples, is an allegorical painting of some size, the sub- 
ject of which is very nearly an embodiment of '^ Pil- 
grim's Progress," and the hero is as defiant as Saint 
George with the Dragon. The plan of the picture is 
a birds'-eye view. A horrid ogre or devil dwells deep 
in a cavernous recess or hell, and his daily food is 
women, many of whom are confined in the gloomy 



A night's lodging. 271 

precincts of his prison. A young prince prays for 
power to rescue them, which is granted, and he is 
provided with a potent potion. Disguised as a pedlar 
he crosses dangerous chasms and descends steep 
cliffs ; at last, arriving at the door of the devil's 
abode, he gains admittance, and gives the devil the 
potion, which he drinks and becomes drunk, when the 
young champion despatches him, and sets at liberty 
all the unfortunate victims that he has there confined. 

This explanation is from memory, and may not be 
entirely correct. 

At the first-named temple, a party of our officerSj 
who taking a long tramp on a hunt, during the day, 
did not get back until a late hour of the night, de- 
sired to lay on the mats in the kunqiva until morning, 
and threw themselves down. The Japanese strongly 
objected to this, and insisted upon their going off 
to their ships. This, on account of the lateness of the 
hour, they declined doing. The officials went off and 
came back with a lot of soldiers and a number of lan- 
terns, and were finally guilty of the rudeness of pul- 
ling them by the feet. At this, our officers kicked 
over their lanterns, and cocked and capped their 
pieces, when the valiant assailants vanished at once. 
Tatsnoske, one of the chief officers of the place, at 
four o'clock in the morning, then went off to the flag- 
ship, had the commodore woke up, and desired him 
to order these officers off to the ship. The commo- 
dore refused to do any such thing ; and the next morn- 



272 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

ing sent the same officers and a captain of marines 
to demand an apology for their conduct from Kara- 
kaha Kahai, which was given without delay. 

There being no treaty of commerce with the Japa- 
nese, preparatory to such a result hex^eafter, a num- 
ber of our coins had been delivered to them be- 
fore leaving the bay of Yedo, that they might be 
assayed at the capital, and the relative value, with 
their own, established. In the meantime, it was no 
doubt intended, or thought on our side, that as the 
people in the stores were willing to sell, and our offi- 
cers were continually offering to purchase little curi- 
osities and other articles of their handicraft that were 
to be found in their shops, that in this way, things 
would find their level, and an impromptu trade, 
as it were, spring up. This notion proved a mis- 
taken one ; things were purchased, but they were paid 
for in silver dollars at the rate of twelve hundred 
cash each, and not directly to the seller, but through 
a government officer called gayoshio. 

In strolling the streets of Simoda you see old crones^ 
arranging, in the open air, their warp for weaving. 
The personal pulchritude of the cadaverous-complex- 
ioned Japanese women, is not much under the best 
circumstances, but when it is remembered that on 
marrying, they shave off their eyebrows, and blacken 
their teeth with some iron rust and acid, as a badge 
of the marital state, their appearance becomes most 
repulsive. The younger women, with their elaborate 



BARGAINING. 273 

arrangement of hair, who have not yet undergone this 
process of disfigurement, though rather ungainly in 
gait, owing to the use of clogs, and wearing about the 
hips an awkward compressing scarf, are quite good- 
looking and with lighter complexions, have also much 
better-shaped eyes than the Chines^. 

The only wheeled vehicle you may see is a rude 
hand-cart, the wheels without tires. Should you meet 
a man on the back of an ox bringing to town bundles 
of wood, the sight of your barbarian garments are 
very apt to incense him greatly ; and the rider, dis- 
turbed by his movements dismounts, takes him by the 
tether, and leads him aside. 

The fronts of the shops are closed with sliding 
screens of paper, oiled to admit the light, and the 
floors raised about two feet from the ground are cov- 
ered with mat-cushions, upon which, a-la-Turk^ sits 
the shopkeeper, who has left his straw sandals at the 
door. You would scarcely be expected to remove 
your boots at every shopdoor you entered, but if you 
stepped up on the platform the shopkeeper would inti- 
mate that your leather shoon would mar the white- 
ness of his mats. The plan of purchase was mostly 
pantomimic. Pointing to the article, you ask, " How 
mutchee ?" The shopkeeper repeating your '' how , 
mutchee ?" as he makes a mental calculation, proceeds 
to hold up the fingers of one or both hands before you, 
each finger being one hundred cash — estimating 
twelve hundred to the dollar. The purchase com- 

12* 



274 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

pleted, you do not pay the seller, but the articles with 
your name, and his mark are sent to the government 
officer, gayoshio^ when the imperial paw is placed 
upon the specie you pay, and the seller is apt to get 
the amount in copper coin. By an arbitrary decision 
they made their itzeboo — a square piece of silver 
with the government stamp, equal to a Spanish dol- 
lar — and as they could take this dollar and coin 
nearly three itzeboos from it, it became a very good 
operation for the imperial treasury, at no time suffer- 
ing from over-filled coffers. 

The religion of the Japanese enjoins cleanliness 
of person upon its votaries, but can scarcely divert 
the repulsive and indecent manner in which it is ob- 
tained. At the bath-houses in Sirnoda the sexes of 
all ages bathe indiscriminately together. 

The Japanese in their intercourse with us, were al- 
ways pertinacious in assuring us, that they were not 
Chinese ; indeed they would have been very indignant 
to be thought of a kindred race. They did not take 
long to find out, that we were not Dutch. They 
would mention derisively the fact of the length of 
intercourse the Chinese had had with other countries, 
and yet, that they had never built square-rigged ves- 
^ sels like ours ; they intimated more enterprise than 
this for themselves. After the signing of the treaty 
with us the imperial edict preventing the building of 
their vessels, without open sterns, was repealed. The 
larger junks usually laid in the bay of Sirahama^ 



ARRIVAL OF THE MACEDONIAN". 275 

further northward : those who came to Simoda, ran in 
to make a harbor, when the weather became threaten- 
ing, or were engaged in bringing copper ore, from 
some neighboring province, and carrying back char- 
coal and wood. 

The Macedonian, after a little over two weeks ab- 
sence, returned from the Benin islands, bringing the 
intelligence, that the man, that we had previously- 
left at Port Lloyd, had decamped from there on some 
whaler, after regaling himself on Uncle Sam's bullocks. 
We hailed her approach with much gratification, as 
she brought sixty large sea-turtles — a perfect God- 
send — an oasis in the desert of salt junk. " Soup ! 
soup !" resounded in the messes, louder than the 
"Beef! beef!" in the American camp, that invoked 
the thunders of Henry. 

The Lexington was sent to Loo-Choo to look after 
things till the return of the other ships ; carrying out 
the recommendation contained in the introduction to 
the work of Golownin : " Provided judicious means 
shall be used and a foundation laid by a progressive 
acquaintance through Loo-Choo." The Macedonian, 
Yandalia, and Southampton, were despatched to Ha- 
kodade, or as it was then spelt on Russian authority, 
Chackodade, in the island of Yeso. A poor fellow, 
killed by falling from the topsail yard of the Pow- 
hatan, was buried without difficulty or objection in 
the ground of a temple, back of Kakizaki. 

On. a fine sunshiny moi*ning, in the latter part of 



276 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

April, I had landed, according to previous appoint- 
ment, to take a botanical tramp into the country with 
the author of the " Middle Kingdom," and with a 
gentleman from South Carolina, our botanist. I reached 
the shore before them, and, a number of the villagers 
around, stood on the glistening white beach between 
Simoda and the fishing village of Kakizaki, watching 
the lazy swell as it came in a roll against Centre 
Sima, or broke with a low splash through its Gothic 
cavern, when I was approached by two young Japan- 
ese, whose dress and address told, that they were 
gentlemen in their land. They wore the rich brocade 
breeches ; the handles of their short and long swords 
were decorated with amulets, and the light blue oval 
on the summit of their fresh shaven polls, shone far 
smoother than '^ a stubble land at harvest home." 
After the characteristic bended and knee-pressing 
salutation, accompanied with the aspirated " Eh !" 
which only a Japanese can do exactly, which I jocu- 
larly replied to with " Abeyo !" they came quite close 
to me. Pointing to our different ships in the harbor, 
they attempted to pronounce their names, but as they 
scarcely succeeded, either in their sequence or their 
articulation, particularly of Mississippi and Pow- 
hatan, I did it for them, and at their request wrote 
all of their names down, with one of their camel's 
hair pencils. This done, they affected to examine 
with some interest the chain attached to my " tokay," 
or watch, and at the same time slipped into the bosom 



AN ADVENTURE. 277 

of my vest an enveloped letter, which noticing, I im- 
mediately attempted to withdraw, when they gently 
rt3trained my hand, cast an anxious glance around, 
and gave a most imploring look for secresy. A 
moment's thought, and I was willing to indulge them 
in this, believing the document to have some refer- 
ence to a matter which had been mooted by the 
younger oflScers of the squadron, of which I was one. 
Just after this, a couple of the resident officers came 
up from the direction of Simoda, whose approach 
was the signal for the scattering of the villagers, 
who are not permitted to stand and gaze on a stranger. 
Between them and my incognito epistolary fiiends, 
salutations were formally interchanged, when both 
parties moved off in opposite directions. The exam- 
ining look which accompanied these otherwise very 
ordinary politenesses, on the part of those from Simo- 
da, caused the idea to pass through my mind that the 
others were from another province. 

By this time, my friends from the flag-ship having 
joined me, we struck into the country to the south- 
ward, to take what in the '^pigeon" dialect of the 
Chinaman, is called a ''look see" at the botany of 
Japan, which those who have more of this pleasant 
information than myself, represent as being of much 
interest. 

Our path led through a very broken yet well- 
wooded and cultivated country. We entered a small 
building used as a schoolhouse, and also as a place of 



278 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

worship. In a room was a colossal figure of some 
female deity in a sitting posture, which, not being a 
Buddhist representation, must have been intended for 
a likeness of Ten-sio-dai-zin^ the especial deity of 
Japan. Officers who had seen it before us, looked 
upon it as a fine specimen of their casting in bronze, 
but we found it on examination to be of wood, paint- 
ed in imitation. We had an opportunity of seeing the 
little dwarfed trees which they are so skilful in pre- 
serving ; and in front of many of the houses, different 
trees trained in the form of animals, with sea-shells 
to represent the eyes. The cultivation, which is very 
close and clean, was mostly in terraces and between 
hills. Occasionally we reached a level field, which 
was being ploughed. This is done with a small 
plough, with a single hand and beam, the share being 
like an iron scoop, not of much diameter. It is drawn 
by an ox in traces, and with wooden saddle, while 
a small boy leads him with a stick attached to a ring 
in the nose, and a man holds the handle of the dimin- 
utive earth-scratcher. Little pathway streams are 
turned to use by being made to fall into wooden 
troughs on the end of balanced wooden levers, which 
filling and precipitating at intervals, with a weight on 
the opposite end of the beam, are made to pound rice 
in mortars. We encountered any number of wayside 
shrines, mostly made by placing small stone images in 
little coves : occasionally a short flight of steps led 
up to one. At these the wayfarer prays. 



BUDDHIST TEMPLE. 279 

About two o'clock in the day we came upon a large 
urban Buddhist temple. The grounds around were 
quite extensive and well cultivated. You entered 
them under a number of steep-roofed gateways, guard- 
ed by a number of little stone-lieutenants to Buddha, 
who seemed to be armed with besoms to sweep away 
evil spirits when they should visit the premises at the 
pale glimpses of the moon. The building was larger 
than any I had seen in Simoda. The interior being 
unsealed overhead, you could look up through rough 
hewn timbers to the thatching of the roof. The floors, 
brightly polished, were covered with a white dust, as 
if the building was neighbor to a flour-mill. The 
grain of the wood of the large unpolished columns 
around the altar, was very beautiful. Buddhas in 
any number were around the room. Black barrel- 
shaped '' tom-toms" were in the middle of the floor, 
the beating on which, by the shiny-headed priests, is 
intended to attract the attention of their divinities to 
their worship, as a daguerreotypist in taking your 
picture first tells you, ^' Now it commences." On one 
side of the main entrance there was a native inscrip- 
tion : '' The laws are ever revolving ;" on the other, 
'' The period of Buddha is near : remember it." To 
the beams inside were pasted a number of strips 
of white paper, which when blank are called go]m% 
and intended as emblems of purity ; and when writ 
ten upon, according to some, are inscribed with moral 
and religious sentences. Those that I noticed were 



280 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

covered with Japanese characters, which I was told 
were the names of those buried in an adjoining cem- 
etery, for whom mass had been performed. In the 
cemetery near by were a great number of tombs — 
little square stone columns very close together, be- 
cause their dead were buried in a sitting posture. 
On all of these you saw a compound character, mean- 
ing '' Returned to vacuity ;" and underneath the in- 
scription told that Leu-tah-churo, or somebody else, 
had gone to nothingness, in such a year of the reign 
of Tairi. 

Eight lascivious-looking priests resided at tlie tem- 
ple, having the receipts from the kunqua attached, as 
a part of their revenue. 

The Ijour of the day having arrived, when that toc- 
sin of man's soul, the dinner-bell, would have been 
heard, if at home, we seated ourselves on the front 
steps of the temple to partake of a little '^ chow- 
chow." While thus engaged the incidents of tho 
morning came to my recollection, and I handed over 
my epistle " extraordinaire,^^ which I had gotten from 
the two Japanese, to my friend our interpreter, to get 
an inkling of what it was all about, at the same time 
giving him my surmises as to its contents. It was 
of much more import ; he thought the commodore 
should see it, promising to return it to me. As there 
Avere a number around us, no doubt indulging in the 
Japanese espionage, I only got at tho time, the su 
perscription, which was : '^ A secret communica- 



VISITERS. 281 

tion, for the American men-of-war ships, to go up 
higher." 

On leaving this place we clambered to the summit 
of high, bleak hills, with a very white volcanic for- 
mation, at the top, so bright that at a distance it 
might well have been taken for snow. The ascent 
was anything but agreeable, as we were impeded by 
thick bushes, brier and bramble. Two Japanese who 
attempted to play pilot, fared worst, but upon getting 
up some distance had the '^sava" to see that going 
ahead were as well as going back. We rested at an 
abandoned quarry on the summit, and from here had 
a fine view of the surrounding country. My compan- 
ions having filled the leaves of an old census-book 
with little botanical specimens, comprising rare little 
plants and cosy little wild flowers of every hue, to- 
gether with what they thought were some new speci- 
mens of the fern family, we descended into a pretty 
little valley waving in wheat, and at sundown were 
at Simoda, 

That night the officer of the mid-watch of the Mis- 
sissippi heard the words '' American ! American !" 
pronounced in a low tone from the top of the gangway- 
ladder, and immediately two young Japanese de- 
scended to the deck. They made signs to him of 
great fatigue, held up their tender though blistered 
hands, and desired to cast off their boat from the 
ship, whicli they were not permitted to do. An at- 
tempt was made to comprehend them by means of a 



282 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Chinese servant, who was awoke for the purpose, but 
the domestic celestial insisted that they had " rice 
for sale." The commander of the Mississippi direct- 
ed them to be put on board of the flag-ship. Here it 
was ascertained they were from Yedo ; that they 
were desirous of coming to our country, and that, un- 
able to effect that object or have communication with 
us when we lay off Yokohama, they had followed us, 
at nauch risk, in an open boat, from the bay of Yedo 
to our anchorage at Simoda. Their plan was, after 
getting on board of us, to permit their boat to go 
adrift, allowing their swords to remain in her, which 
family relics the Japanese regard as very heir-looms, 
not to be parted with but in the last extremity, and 
by this means to produce the belief that their owners 
had been drowned when the boat should be picked 
up. Fearing there might be some deception in the 
matter, perhaps a ruse to see in what faith we were 
prepared to observe their laws, which we were aware 
prohibited any of their people from leaving Japan for 
a foreign country, they were ordered to be put ashore 
in a ship's boat at a point where they would not be 
liable to observation, which was done, the hour being 
nearly two in the morning. On reaching the beach 
they soon disappeared in the woods. 

A few days afterward, some of our officers in their 
strolls ashore, ascertained that there were two Jap- 
anese confined in a cage at a little barrack back of 
the town, and on going there they were found to be 



OUR VISITERS CAGED. 283 

the persons who had paid the midnight visit to our 
ships, and they also proved to be my mifortunate 
friends of the letter. They did not appear greatly 
down-cast by their situation, and one of them wrote 
in his native character on a piece of board, and passed 
through the bars of his cage, to one of our surgeons 
present, what follows : — 

When a hero fails in his purpose, his acts are then regarded as 
those of a viUain and robber. In public have we been seized and 
pinioned, and darkly imprisoned for many days ; the village elders 
and headmen treat us disdainfully, their oppressions being grievous 
indeed ; therefore looking up while yet we have nothing wherewith 
to reproach ourselves, it must now be seen whether a hero will prove 
himself to be one indeed. 

Regarding the liberty of going through the sixty states (of 
Japan) as not enough for our desires, we wished to make the circuit 
of the five great continents ; this was our heart's wish for a long time. 
Suddenly our plans are defeated, and we find ourselves in a half- 
sized house, where eating, resting, sitting, and sleeping, are difficult, 
nor can we find our exit from this place. Weeping we seem as fools, 
laughing as rogues — alas ! for us, silent we can only be. 

ISAGI KOODA, 
KWANSUCHI MaNJI. 

The commodore, it is said, did not hear of their 
capture and confinement, until the next morning, 
when he sent some officers ashore to see what might 
be done in the way of intercession, but on reaching 
the barrack, it was found that they had that morning 
been sent to tlie city of Yedo, and as the attendant 
at the place made sign, for the purpose of being be- 
headed. 



284 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

The following is the translation of the letter, which 
the unfortunate aspirants, for a sight of the great 
world, beyond their hermetic empire, placed in the 
breast of my vest, the neat and sharply-defined char- 
acters of whose original, as it lies before me, would 
assure even one, who did not comprehend their lan- 
guage, that it had been pencilled by men of intel- 
ligence and taste. 

Two scholars of Yedo, in Japan, named Isagi Kooda and Kwan- 
suchi Manji, present this letter to the high officers or others who 
manage affairs. That which we have received is meager and trifling, 
as are our persons insignificant, so that we are ashamed to come be- 
fore distinguished personages. We are ignorant of arms and their 
uses in battle, nor do we know the rules of strategy and discipline. 
We have in short, uselessly whiled away our months and years, and 
know nothing. We heard a little of the customs and knowledge of 
the Europeans and Americans, and have desired to travel about in 
the five great continents, but the maritime prohibitions of our coun- 
try are exceeding strict, so that for the foreigners to enter the ^4nner 
land^' or for natives to go to other countries, are alike among the im- 
mutable regulations. Therefore our desire to travel has been check- 
ed, and could only go to and fro in our breasts, unable to find utter- 
ance, and our feet so hampered that v/e could not stir. 

This had been the case many years, when happily the arrival of so 
many of your ships anchoring in our waters, now for several days, 
and our careful and repeated observation of the kind and humane 
conduct of your officers, and their love for others, has revived the 
cherished desire of years, which now struggles for its exit. We have 
decided on a plan, which is, very privately to take us aboard of your 
ships and carry us to sea, that we may travel over the five continents, 
even if, by so doing, we disregard our laws. We hope you will not 
regard our humble request with disdain, but rather enable us to carry 
it out. Whatever we are able to do to serve, will be considered as an 
order so soon as we hear it. 



THE LETTER. 285 

When a lame man st;es another walking, or a pedestrian sees an- 
other riding, would he not be glad to be in his place ? How much 
more to us, who, for our whole lives, could not go beyond 30° E. and 
W., or 25° N. to S., when we behold you come riding on the high 
wind, and careering over the vast waves, with lightning speed coast- 
ing along the five continents, does it appear as if the lame had a way 
to walk, or the walker an opportunity to ride ! 

We hope you who manage affairs will condescend to grant and re- 
gard our request, for as the restrictions of our country are not yet 
removed, if this matter becomes known, we shall have no place to 
flee, and doubtless will suffer the extremest penalty, which result 
would greatly grieve your kind and benevolent hearts toward your 
fellow-men. 

We trust to have our request granted, and also that you will secrete 
us until you sail, so as to avoid all risk of endangering life. When 
we return here at a future day, we are sure that what has passed will 
not be very closely investigated. Though rude and unpractised in 
speech, our desires are earnest, and we hope you will regard us in 
compassion, nor doubt or oppose our request. April 11th. 

All additional note enclosed^ was : — 

The enclosed letter contains the earnest request we have had for 
many days, and which we tried in many ways to get off to you at 
Yokohama, in a fishing boat by night, but the cruisers were too thick, 
and none others were allowed to come alongside, so that we were in 
great uncertainty what to do. Learning that the ships were coming 
here, we have come to wait, intending to seize a punt and come off, 
but have not succeeded. Trusting that your honors will consent, 
after people are quiet to morrow night, we will be at Kakizaki in a 
punt, at a place where there are no houses, near the beach. There 
we greatly desire you to come and meet us, and thereby carry out our 
hopes to their fruition. April 25th. 

The Japanese smaller ordnance is quite defective, 
some of their pieces loading at the breech, by un- 
screwing. Many of their gentlemen, among their 



286 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

other accomplishments, study the military art. To 
this number, and their artillery officers, our handsome 
small pieces, — Lieutenant Dalgren's twelve-pounder 
brass howitzers — without a superfluous ounce of 
metal, and probably as admirable guns as are to be 
found in use among any nation — were always objects 
of great interest. The Japanese were presented 
with one of these howitzers before v/e left the bay of 
Tedo, but none of the lock-wafers, or boxes of can- 
ister, or other fixed ammunition for them, were given, 
nor any instruction as to the manner in which they 
were made. 

The following is a translation of a letter from a 
military man from Yedo, who, for the single object of 
collecting information, had been following the squad- 
ron, in the hope of meeting one of our officers. He 
was a gentleman of some rank, and had influence with 
several men in authority at Simoda, who visited him 
and never prevented his coming aboard. The letter 
w^as written in Dutch, and as a specimen of progress 
of military science in Japan, and search for other Idt 
formation, is not uninteresting. 

A GREAT SECRET. 

The law in Japan wiU not allow us to speak or to write with people 
of another country. Yesterday, on my return from the ship, I found 
that out, and it was not pleasant — Now you'll be on shore to day, 
with friendship; I can not control (check) my desire to speak in 
writing, and shall follow up the prompting of my soul. 

At an early age I commenced studying the European and Chinese 
art of war with the aid of my teachers at Yedo ; the European is cor- 



A THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE. 287 

tainly superior to the Chinese mode of warfare, I think and know 
more of it. On the arrival of the American ships off Uraga, Kana- 
gawa, Yokahama, and Simoda, I went to and fro to those places, and 
on board of the ships at every opportunity, I saw there several instru- 
ments and machines, but don't know enough about it. I could not 
speak with the Americans for the persons who visit the ships in busi- 
ness, would not allow it. 

Where is the island Borin,=^ and who lives there 1 Tell me, if you 
please, the names of some great countries. 

What are Kanaka Wich, to what country do they belong ? f 

What are the implements at the disposal of an officer, who com- 
mands ten thousand soldiers in the field 1 

What are the advantages of the steam-gun ? 

Give me a recipe to make percussion-caps. 

In a Dutch book on military art I found, that for a newly-invented 
gun or musJcet the percussion-caps are attached to the cartridge by a 
thread. Why don't the Americans have such muskets, haven't they 
yet discovered how 'i 

Why do people from other countries live in Loo-Choo ? 

Simoda on the horizon from the north pole in what degree ? And 
in what degree to the east from London ? a few days ago the masters 
of the Mississip])i have been measuring, they must know. 

If you will be kind enough to give me the information, what is the 
most useful and latest invention in America for military men. I 
shall be obliged to you and be always ready to oblige you in return. 

It wiir worry your mind to read my letter and I find expressions 
for what my soul suggests. 

B. N. M., or (X.) 

I hope you will answer my letter, I go on board of the ships in the 
boats that take the water. I can not go on any other boat, and am 
always in the hope that the boat will be sent to the ship where you 
are. 

I shall go to Yedo and be back in Simoda on the return of the 
ships from Hakodade, and hope to see you then in good health. 

* Probably Bonin island, known to the Japanese as Moniusoma. 
t Probably Kanaka, Sandwich island, he alludes to. 



288 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Query. The great Mexico empire, vfiiich belongs to the powerful 
United States, where is that situated ? 

The authorities have notified me, that I was not allowed to receive 
Americans at the house and converse with them. 

I therefore write this letter and shall be on board your ship to-mor- 
row and speak with you. 

The following day he was on board, according to 
promise, in the suite of some Japanese officers. 
There was no opportunity to answer his questions 
that day, and on the return of the ships from Hako- 
dade he did not make his appearance, retained by ill- 
ness or otherwise at Yedo, that is all. The officers 
heard from him, but never saw him again after that 
day, and his questions remained unanswered. " Give 
me a recipe to make percussion-caps." 

We noticed the number of matchlocks, that the 
Japanese were armed with, when we landed first in 
Japan — at Gorihama. The Dutch writers say, that 
they are aware of the superiority of the musket, but 
that a deficiency of flints in the geological formation 
of their country, and their determined aversion to 
dependence upon foreigners for anything essential to 
their military equipment, prevents their adoption. 
Their curiosity about the mode of making percussion- 
caps, and the '' wafers" for the howitzers, was very 
great at all times. 

It was well enough with the Japanese, as long as 
they remained secluded, but when the visit of the 
American ships gave their military men an oppor- 



DEFENCES. 289 

tunity of seeing what great improvements had been 
made in 

" the mortal engines, 



Whose rude throats, Jove's dread clamors conterfeit," 

the contrast showed them the defectiveness of their 
defences, and with an enterprise far ahead of their 
Cathayan neighbors, they at once proceeded to cudgel 
their brains to see how their security might be made 
greater. They at first thought of fortifying Simoda, 
but being told that it could never become a great 
commercial place, they gave that up. Izabavo, one 
of their most prominent engineers, was told to make 
a report as to the fortification of Uraga, because with 
more sagacity than that displayed by the Americans, 
they know its importance with reference to their 
capital. Yedo is the London — the Paris of Japan. 
When it falls, the empire goes with it. They know 
that the supplies for this enormous place are gotten 
coastwise by the junks, who come into the bay, and 
that the blockading of Uraga in the bay of Yedo, 
easily reached, would stop the throat of the Japan- 
ese empire. 

Izabavo reported, that, as no two fortifications 
could protect Uraga, and that the width and rough- 
ness of the bay at times, and the depth of water, 
would make floating batteries impracticable, a gun- 
boat system, such as was once adopted by our own gov- 
ernment, must be their defence. These matters were 
discussed by the imperial council, as also the reorgani- 

13 



290 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

zation of their army on the European plan, that is tho 
having a standing army, that would obey promptly, 
the behests of the centralized government at Yedo, 
and quiet any refractory sentiment of their thousands, 
like the coup d'etat of the 2d of December by Napo- 
leon III., instead of each of the princes of the empire 
contributing a quota of troops, as now. 

We had now lain nearly a month at Simoda, see- 
ing more of Japan than during the two months we 
lay in the bay of Yedo. We had enjoyed the walks 
ashore, we had enjoyed baths from a fine spring, and 
picknicked in the woods of Sarahama. But we had 
missed Poogee Yama, which at all other points we 
thought ubiquitous. I had climbed the high hills 
back of Kakizaki, to get another look at the moun- 
tain, but other and higher hills more distant, ob- 
structed the view. 

Foogee Yama since our arrival in the waters of 
Japan, as the Howadjis on the Nile tell of the great 
pyramid, seemed to follow ns wherever we went. 
When the cold clear morning of February found us 
running into the bay of Kawatsoo, we saw over our 
bowsprit Foogee, looming up in austere magnificence. 
When our colors were hauled down in the evening at 
Yokohama, every one admired the majestic beauty of 
Foogee peering. like a ponderous pile of marble out 
of the furnace of sunset. If the rains fell heavily 
during the night, when the curtain of cloud lifted up 
in the morning, in patches here and there, Foogee ap- 




^ 






FOOGEE YAMA. 291 

peared to wear under its mantle of chilling cold, a 
garment of genial green ; and when the Mississippi 
lay at Webster island, from her hurricane-deck, above 
the line of pines that covered the bold bluffs of the 
shore, sometimes near, sometimes afar off, its summit 
clothed in fleecy clouds of deferential beauty, grandly 
shone the towering mound ; so now, land-locked and 
our view shut in by the high hills around Simoda, we 
missed Foogee Yama. 



292 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION, 



CHAPTER XIII. 

On the IStli of May, the fifty days after the sign- 
ing of the treaty having nearly expired, the Pow- 
hatan and Mississippi started for Hakodadi, leaving 
the storeship Supply at anchor at Simoda. Instead 
of keeping in shore, the two steamers stood off and 
ran between Oho Sima and Ja Sima, The day 
being clear, Foog-ee from his aerial height was soon 
looking at us. We ran quite close to the south- 
western side, and had a good view of Oho Sima. 
The whole island appears to have been upheaved by 
volcanic action from the sea. From the jaws of a 
basin-shaped crater, issued white smoke and ashes. 
The side of the mountain next to us was marked by 
large fissures, or streaked with streams of lava. The 
vegetation on many of the slopes presented a pretty 
picture, when contrasted with the dull-charred mass 
that encompassed it. There are said to be three 
towns on the place. We saw two quite plainly, but 
where their harbor is, or how the steep shores are 
approached in rough weather, it was difficult to per- 
ceive. 



PRINTING AT SEA. 293 

After rounding Oho Sima, we stood into the land, 
and during the day ran in full sight of the shores of 
Niphon, running northward from the entrance of the 
bay of Yedo. The fields of barley, just assuming 
its yellow dress, were spread out as far as the vision 
extended inland. Both ships stopped at intervals to 
make soundings. At one time, when we had stopped 
for this purpose, and got bottom, at twenty-eight 
fathoms, on what is called an " over-fall," the op- 
position of current and wind made a '' chow-chow" 
sea, which swashed over our rail, while the fine 
buoyant sea-boats of Japanese fishermen around, 
danced dryly like ducks. 

This day, I think it was, marked what may be con- 
sidered a new item in the history of typography. 
We had on board one of the little engines, which 
from the days of Paustus have evolved more power, 
than the ponderous ones, that revolved our paddles, 
and by its aid, in a sea-way, an intelligent midship- 
man, familiar with the art preservative of arts, 
" wet sheets," and printer's ink, caused to be struck 
off copies of the commodore's correspondence with 
the Japanese, and of the surveys of Lieutenant 
Maury. That little press deserves a place in the 
patent-office, near the one, from which came " Poor 
Richard's Almanack." 

After a run of three days, standing in for the shore 
during the day, and off during the night, making 
soundings at intervals, seeing an occasional scliool 



294 THE J^PAN EXPEDITION. 

of whales, and our daily observations and reckonings 
showing a strong current in our favor, going to prove 
— what has been advanced by many — the existence 
of a continuous current on the coast of Japan, similar 
in character and direction to the Gulf stream on our 
coast, we made the entrance to the straits of Sangar. 
The land on either side was quite notable. That on 
the northern or island of Yeso side, bold and sharply 
defined, while a singular conformation on the Niphon 
or southern side, looked exactly the profile of the 
Leviathans that frequent the waters in its vicinity — 
" wery like a whale." On entering we found a strong 
eastwardly tide running through and against us. By 
sun-down we had run some distance in, under the 
high shores of the northern side, when it came on 
thick, and the heads of both steamers were put out- 
ward. We had made during the day a point of longi- 
tude further to the east than any, that we had reached 
since leaving the United States. Soundings were 
made every fifteen minutes during the night, and day- 
light found us enveloped in one of the dense fogs, 
from which the Japanese empire in this section, ac- 
cording to Golownin, is seldom free during the 
entire year. Both ships had to announce their prox- 
imity for some hours, to one another, by tlie use of 
their steam-whistles and the striking of their bells. 
When the fog lifted on the morning of tlie 17th, we 
found that the tidal current during the night, had set 
us in, rather than out, and holding on westwardly for 



BAY OF HAKODADI. 295 

a short time, we discovered over a low peninsula 
nearly ahead, described by the Russian captain Ri- 
cord, in his voyages for the liberation of Golownin, 
the Macedonian, Yandalia, and Southampton, at an- 
chor inside of the harbor of Hakodadi. We soon 
rounded a high promontory, and stood into a magnifi- 
cent bay. The distance we had run from Simoda 
was six hundred and nine miles. About 11 o'clock 
we anchored within gun-shot of the town ; it may be 
near the spot, where forty-one years before lay the 
imperial Russian brig Diana, to procure the release 
from an imprisonment in stockade cages of three 
years, of her former commander and his companions, 
by the Japanese — after three voyages, in which she 
was successful. 

The temperature, on our arrival, we found very 
materially different from what we had left at Simoda; 
the difference of latitude is about seven degrees. The 
snow still lay on the mountains around, and the air 
made thick boots and an overcoat comfortable. 

The bay of Hakodadi is most spacious and majestic 
in its sweep, and for facility of entrance and security 
of anchorage, it can scarcely be surpassed by any 
other in the world. The width at its mouth is so 
great that no two fortifications could command or 
protect it, yet the curvature of the higli land around 
is such as to afford the greatest shelter. For all the 
uses of Americans it is worth fifty Simodas ; here our 
enterprising whalers, after being buffeted about in the 



296 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

rude seas of Ochotsk and Japan in its vicinity, may 
ere long repair to recruit and refit, and procure sup- 
plies of wood and water, instead of being compelled 
as hitherto, to make the long stretch to the Sandwich 
Islands. Besides this, a line drawn on the arc of a 
great circle fi'om California to North China, passes 
through the straits of Sangar and by Hakodadi ; and 
here, and not at Simoda, which has been mentioned 
as a depot, would coal have to be placed for the use 
of steamers between San Francisco and Shanghae. 

It was agreed by all the old Mediterranean cruis- 
ers aboard, as we dropped anchor, that the view 
around was the counterpart of Gibraltar and its 
vicinity. The northern side from where we lay was 
the main land of Spam ; the low sandy peninsula, 
over which we could easily see the water of Sangar, 
was the " neutral ground," encircling Smugglers' 
bay ; on our left hand lay a small fishing-village, 
which corresponded to the Spanish town of Algesiras. 
The southern part of the hill under which the town 
is, was Point Europa ; the hill itself, in its high and 
rugged isolation, was the frowning rock that enclosed 
the sulphurous engines, while in the distance, across 
the straits, on the north end of Niphon, now well dis- 
cerned, or vaguely seen, as the sun shines out or the 
mists vary, is the natural prototype of Ape's hill, in 
Africa, whose simial inhabitants are said to find their 
way most mysteriously across the Mediterranean. To 
my eye, the place bore a great resemblance to Cape 



HAKODADI. 297 

Town, Cape of Good Hope, if the mount in the rear 
were little more flattened on the summit, while an ad- 
joining hill was the " Lion's Rump." 

The city — containing about four thousand houses, 
in which there is an average of four persons — is 
built in a convex form reaching the water's edge, and 
at the base of a very high and abrupt circular hill, 
called Hakodadi Yama, The most prominent objects 
are the temples, one of which is some two hundred 
feet square, whose red tile roofs reflect the sun, and 
suggest the idea of a Portuguese place. The principal 
streets are wide, running parallel with the water, 
rolled with gravel, and very cleanly kept. Those 
that intersect them are narrower, and closed with 
gateways of wood. From walls at either end of the 
place, and entrenchments dug on other sides, it must 
have been the object to fortify it. The houses of 
wood, and with more stories and larger than those of 
Simoda, have great projecting eaves. The clap-boards 
making the covering of the roof are singularly con- 
fined in their places by a number of cobble-stones : 
such a place would be hard to take by street-fighting, 
for every roof would furnish missiles for the annoy- 
ance of assailants. Every precaution seems to be 
taken against fire — brooms and barrels of water sur- 
mounting each house and before every door. At 
some places they have primitive little fire-engines, 
which appear to be stationary. The streets are 
thronged with the police who are very numerous, 

13* 



298 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

armed with sword, and organized as military, and any 
number of miserable-looking curs, called yenos^ re- 
sembling shouds, or dogs bred between the wolf and 
the dog ; meaner looking than the cayotes of Califor- 
nia. 

Having no previous knowledge of our intended 
visit, a perfect panic prevailed among the people of 
the place on the arrival of our sailing ships in their 
bay, which was increased by the arrival of the two 
fire-ships. The municipal authorities, it is said, were 
the first to leave the place ; and the women were sent 
after them. For several days long lines of horses, 
packed with movables, could be seen leaving the city 
and winding away over a long sandy plain, like a 
string of camels in a desert. 

The cause of all this commotion was afterward 
found to be a belief among the inhabitants, that our 
visit was to bring them to account for having impris- 
oned some American seamen who had been sliip- 
wrecked on their coast some years ago. A number 
of the junks in the harbor also left, though there 
were some two hundred at anchor continually during 
our stay. It required some time to pacify the people ; 
although six weeks had elapsed since the signing of 
the treaty, the authorities protested that they had 
heard nothing of it, and consequently nothing of the 
intended visit of the squadron. They said they could 
not take the responsibility of having any communica- 
tion with us, except to furnish wood and water. 



INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHORITIES. 299 

They represented their position as embarrassing, and 
hoped that we would not come ashore until the arri- 
val of higher ofScers than themselves. 

In the meantime a survey of the harbor was pro- 
ceeded in ; some very good wild game was killed on 
the opposite shore from the town, and our seine being 
hauled, yielded nice salmon and quantities of shell- 
fish, which were most acceptable. 

The second day after our arrival, the commodore — 
varying from his usual rule of only seeing the highest 
officer of a place, who would have been, in this in- 
stance, Prince Matsmai Idzee-no-kami, residing at the 
city of Matsmai, not far distant — granted an inter- 
view on the Mississippi, to Matsmai Kageyu, deputy of 
the prince of Matsmai, or freely translated, " Prince's 
family's great officer," and to Yendo Matazaymon,,an 
officer of Hakodadi. The boats in which they came 
off were like others, but were the first and only ones 
tiiat I BSiW roiued in Japan instead of sculled; and 
this was done by continually revolving the oar as 
they pulled. The rowers, who were numerous, were 
dressed in long, green gowns, and characters on the 
shoulders told whom they served, like the inscription 
about the neck of the thrall of Cedric the Saxon. 

These officers said, not being able to divine the 
cause of our visit, they had concluded it to be a pred- 
atory one ; and that the people possessed of this 
idea had been leaving the place with their movables, 
and that the stampede still continued. 



300 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

On delivering to them a letter from the commis- 
sioners, however, and showing them the treaty, their 
anxiety was at once allayed. When told that we 
would not be followed by their police when we came 
ashore for a walk, they said very well, but that they 
thought that our officers and theirs being seen in 
friendly intercourse, would have a good effect with 
the people, and cause those who had left, to return. 
They said they had nothing at Hakodadi to dispose 
of but fish-oil, dried fish, and deerskins. The rela- 
tive value of our currency and theirs, was settled by 
weighing our dollar, which was a feather lighter 
than three of their little square coins — the kana-its- 
evoo. The effect of this rating was to make our dol- 
lar equal to 4,800 cash — their its-evoo being estima- 
ted at 1,600 cash. This was scarcely just when it 
was recollected that in China our dollar was only 
taken for 1,200, or at most, 1,600 cash. 

The wind blowing very fresh, these officers remained 
on board some time, when they were entertained in 
the cabin, and shown over the ship. When they 
came off they brought with them a present consisting 
of dried fish, placed on a lacquered tray, and a quan- 
tity of sweet potatoes contained in a straw-bag. 

The next day the officers of the squadron visited 
the shore, landing at a neat flight of stone steps, 
which had been set apart by the authorities for the 
purpose; no doubt — as things in Japan undergo 
slight changes in forty years — the same flight that 



TRADING. 301 

Golownin descended from his captivity. Many desir- 
ous of getting some of the curios that the place 
possessed, indicated a most pressing propensity for 
purchase, taking the shopkeepers, of a place generally 
dull, very much by surprise. On this day there was 
exposed at the shop-fronts some of their swords, an 
article forbidden to be sold out of the country by Jap- 
anese laws ; of the purchase of one or two, by some of 
our officers, the authorities subsequently made com- 
plaint to the commodore, as well as of other things 
not very creditable to our reputation. In doing so, 
they said : " In general, when upright, cordial propri- 
ety marks intercourse, then peace, good feeling, and 
harmony, are real between the parties ; but if harsh- 
ness, violence, and grasping, characterize it, then hate 
and distrust, with collision arise, and love will not be 
found to bring the hearts of the people together. 
This is a rule of heaven, concerning which, no one 
can have any doubt." 

'' In general," the terms of this communication 
are rather extreme, but that "cordial propriety" 
marked the conduct of some of our officers — con- 
duct which was not at all calculated to make '^ our 
name great among the heathen "— it would be untrue 
to say. 

On landing I visited the large temple behind and 
above the town, having a background of a dense 
grove of cypress, and very conspicuous from the 
water. Its front, as we stepped it off, was eighty- 



302 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

seven paces. The interior exceeded in gilding, and 
elaborateness of unpainted carving, anything I had 
yet seen in Japan. I would have taken it to be a 
Sintoo temple, from a female image with an aureola, 
resembling the images in catholic churches with the 
golden halo encircling the head, but in another cor- 
ner there was an image of a shaved-head Buddha in 
v/ood, and brilliantly lacquered. Resembling very 
much some images I saw on the British war-steamer 
Rattler, taken at the capture of Rangoon, I con- 
cluded the imago must have been brought to this re- 
mote point from India, although religion is a matter 
upon which all persons visiting Japan for a limited 
period as we did, are liable to fall into the greatest 
errors. 

There are two accounts of the introduction of 
Buddhism into Japan ; according to Siebold, in 552,- 
Sching-ming-whang, king of Petsi- — a Corean state, 
then a dependant and ally of Japan — sent to the 
court of the mikado^ a bronze image of the Sakya 
Buddha, with flags, books, &c. ; and a letter which 
said, '' This doctrine is the best of any. It reveals 
what was a riddle and a mystery even to Kung-foo-tse. 
It promises us happiness and retribution, immeasur- 
able and boundless ; and finally makes of us an un- 
surpassable Buddhi. It is, to use a simile, a treasure 
containing all that human heart desires ; affording 
all that is for our good. And this treasure possesses 
a twofold value, because it so completely adapts it- 



THE PRIESTS. 303 

self to the nature of our soul. Pray or make vows 
according to the disposition of your mind, you will 
want for nothing. The doctrine came to us from 
farther India. The king of Petsi imparts it to the 
realm of the mikado^ in order that it may be there 
diffused, and that which is written in the book of 
Buddha be fulfilled. My doctrine shall spread toward 
the East." 

This temple may have been one dedicated to 
Riohoo-Synsu worship — Sintooism blended with 
Buddhism — and the female image was that of Tensio- 
dai-zin. Buddhism is regarded as a kind of safeguard 
against expelled and detested Christianity, and the 
lower order are all Buddhists. 

The Sintoo and Buddhist priests or bonzes, who 
constitute the clergy of Japan, are held in very little 
repute by the people, and this remote regard seems 
to be reciprocated by the clericals. Both classes, so 
far as I observed, lounge and gossip in their places 
of worship, attaching little or no sanctity to it, except 
it may be, when immediately engaged in their devo- 
tions. On one occasion I noticed a parcel of devotees 
in a temple, with a kind of sack surplice about their 
shoulders, engaged in their religious exercises, and 
while thus employed, some shaven-poll junior priests 
were very deliberately sweeping the floor-mats in 
their faces, as if giving them a practical illustration 
of throwing dust in their eyes. In passing from the 
front of one altar to another they invariably dropped 



304 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

the priests' perquisite of copper cash in the well-locked 
boxes. 

The bonzes of the orders of the blind, who may be 
seen walking the streets in their gauze gowns and 
swinging sashes, appear to be in high favor with the 
populace. The history of these orders is eminently 
Japaneish. The first is called Bussaiz Sato. Cen- 
turies are nothing in Japanese chronology, and this 
was instituted many centuries ago, by one Senmimar, 
the junior son of a mikado^ who was a perfect Japa- 
nese Adonis, in commemoration of his having wept 
himself blind for the loss of his princess, whose good 
looks were equal to his own. The first order had 
existed for ages, when the second appeared. Yori- 
tomo, the first ziogoon^ of whom I have previously 
spoken, while leading the mikadoes troops, defeated 
the rebel prince Feki, who fell, and his general Kake- 
kigo captured. He was a general of great renown, 
and Yoritomo strove to gain his prisoner's friendship, 
by loading him with kindness, and finally offering him 
his liberty. The captive Kakekigo replied : '^ 1 can 
love none but my slain master. I owe you gratitude ; 
but you caused Prince Fekl's death, and never can I 
look upon you without wishing to kill you. My best 
way to avoid such ingratitude, and to reconcile my 
conflicting duties, is never to see you more ; and thus 
do I insure it." He tore out his eyes, and presented 
them to Yoritomo on a salver. The prince, struck 
with admiration, released him ; and in retirement 



A VIEW FROM HAKODADI YAMA. 305 

Kakekigo founded the second order of the blind, 
called after his former master, Feki-sado, 

The ascent to the Hakodadi Yama, a hill rising 
some fifteen hundred feet back of the town, I made 
through fields of black, rich soil, not yet dry from 
melting snow, which, a Japanese made sign, had been 
breast deep. Wild grape-vines all around were bud- 
ding out. The view from the top of this hill was 
very commanding: across the straits in Niphon, and 
on the mountain tops around, you saw " winter lin- 
gering," &c. Below, long trains of pack-horses loaded 
with charcoal were continually traversing the plain ; 
the fishing villages were busy with their seines ; the 
town showed like a narrow strip of houses, and our 
ships and the three hundred junks in the harbor, went 
but a little way to fill up the great water space 
around. Ours were no doubt the first Anglo-Saxon 
feet, that ever trod this height. We found a look- 
out house up there, where the movement of every 
ship passing through the straits of Sangar into the 
sea of Japan is noted. It was counting the whalers 
passing here, and the annual increase of the number 
bearing the American flag, that tended to give the 
Japanese an exalted opinion of the greatness of our 
country, though one of the lookouts did not show it 
in a very flattering way. He desired the direction of 
America : I gave it to him. He then very delibera- 
tely drew a large with the point of his sword-case 
on the ground, and said ''Nipong ;" and then drawing 



306 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

a small o he said '' America ;" this was very well 
when the '' Lion played painter," but not admiring his 
geographical scale, I permitted his " Nipong" chart 
to remain, and drew one for " America" many times 
larger, whereat he took no more interest in the com- 
parison. 

On descending from the Yama, I spied an open gate 
leading into a prison-yard enclosed by walls and 
stockade. The objections by the attendant and the 
police to our entrance were strong, as those we had 
first experienced in Simoda. They drew their finger 
across their throats and held up their right thumb to 
show the penalty they might undergo from the chief 
man, in not hindering our movements. But we had 
seen enough of them not to be deterred by any such 
flimsiness. We knew that, if v/e wished to sneeze in 
their territory, that they would shake their head, 
hold up the chief-man finger, and say " Ni ! ni !" On 
one occasion two companions and myself had ap- 
proached a small building with a sliding door, to see 
whether it did not contain a cage. The officers at- 
tempted to impede our progress, but on our getting 
close to it, they looked horrified and shuddered ; two 
of the party, who were smoking, supposing that it 
was a powder-magazine, immediately threw away 
their cigars. On sliding aside the door, there was 
visible an old mat in a small vacant room. We made 
up our mind, in our movements to do only what we 



THE FORT. 307 

ourselves would deem proper in our own country, and 
so went ahead. 

In the town there are fire-proof magazines, built at 
intervals by the government, for the storage of arti- 
cles, and for the protectiouvof things during a fire. 

There are no forts in the vicinity of Hakodadi, un- 
less a small excavated one with two direct embra- 
sures may be so called. This place was without any 
garrison ; you descended into it by an inclined plane 
made with fascines. In its rear was a very well-con- 
structed magazine made with gabions, and covered 
with earth-works. The sides were supported witli 
stockade and fascine. The merlon was sustained by 
flanking so clumsy that the range of the deep embra- 
sures was quite small. Its object must have been to 
bring ships to, but the reduced size of the guns as 
shown by the houses built over them — if there were 
any guns underneath — each crack being carefully 
stopped — would do little damage. 

Not far from here are some wayside praying ma- 
chines, and a cemetery in which several of the poor 
fellows of the ^' Vandalia" were interred. On the 
occasion of their burial by their messmates, preceded 
by drum and fife, the streets were lined on either side 
by the Japanese police, who kept every avenue clear. 

The Japanese had a bazar arranged at the place at 
which we landed, where a number of purchases were 
made by the squadron, and the officials saw more sil- 
ver dollars than during their whole previous lifetime. 



308 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

There are supposed to be twenty thousand hairy 
kuriles on the island of Yeso, though we did not see 
any of them, there being none in Hakodadi during 
our stay. The officers of the Southampton, which 
vessel was sent around to Volcano bay to make a re- 
connoissance, enjoyed the opportunity of taking a 
look at the Orsons or Esaus. 

On the last day of May, after we had entertained 
the Japanese authorities aboard with the pleasant 
attitudinizing of "Jim Brown," and songs Ethiopan, 
the Macedonian left for Simoda, taking a look at the 
Japanese penal island of Fatisisio on the way, if the 
weather would permit, and the Vandalia was sent 
to Shanghae, China, by the way of the Japali sea, to 
relieve the Plymouth, that had been looking after 
American interests during the rebel-fights at that 
place. 

The long-expected functionaries from Yedo did not 
reach Hakodadi until the 1st of June. The distance 
they had to come, including the passage across the 
straits, in a direct line, was about four hundred miles, 
and yet they had been fifty days in making the jour- 
ney. The next day after their arrival it was in con- 
templation to have a military function with sailors, 
music, marines, and artillery ashore, but continued 
rain prevented it. 

The Russians, who hitherto had no port on the 
eastern side of their empire contiguous to north 
China, had been compelled to carry on their tea- 



RUSSIAN AGGRESSIONS. 309 

trade by inland caravans that had been stopped 
by the insurgent fights, and who could only send 
supplies to their posts of Sitka and Petropaulofski, 
near the Ochotsk sea, by Cape Horn, had, under 
Count Muravieff, boldly seized on the mouth and 
fine harbor of the river Amoor, in the Tartar terri- 
tory, and fortified it. As the position was weakened 
by the river emptying into the channel of Tartary, 
Muravieff, to make assurance doubly sure, had seized 
that too. 

Intelligence of these doings having reached Yedo, 
one of the deputies at Hakodadi, Hirayama Kenziro, 
was on his way to Saghalien to find out whether the 
Eussians were not coming the filibuster Chowstoflf on 
them again. 

These functionaries made some of their character- 
istic communications to the commodore : — 

In the paper, sent his Excellency this morning, it was stated, 
that we had received orders from Yedo to go to Karafto ; that on the 
road we heard, that your ships were at Hakodadi, and as the consulta- 
tions at Yokohama were not fully known on these distant frontier 
places, there might some misunderstandings arise, and so we came 
here especially to sec you. If there are any points connected with 
the treaty, which need deliberation and settlement, we desire that you 
will let us know them. 

# # # ^ # # # 

With regard to going through the streets and seeing shops and 
houses shut, with neither women nor children in their ways, let it be 
here observed, that at Yokohama this very matter was plainly spoken 
of by Moriyama, the interpreter at that place. The customs of our 
country are unlike yours, and the people have been unused to see 
persons from foreign lands ; though the authorities did what they 



310 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

could to pacify them, and teach them better, they still were disinclined 
to believe, and many absconded or hid themselves. 

If the commodore will recall to mind, the day, when he took a 
ramble at Yokohama, in which some of us accompanied him, he will 
recollect, that in the villages and houses we hardly saw a woman, 
during the whole walk. If he saw more of them at Simoda as he 
went about, it was because there the people were gradually accustom- 
ed to the Americans, and their fears had been allayed, so that they 
felt no dread. 

On these remote frontiers, many hundred miles from Yedo, the 
usages of the people are so fixed, that they are not easily influenced 
and altered ; but pray, how can the inhabitants here think of regard- 
ing the Americans with inimical feelings ? Even when they see their 
officers, with the sight of whom they are not familiar, they also run 
aside, and as if for fear, they seek to escape us. It is the custom of 
our country, that officers should accompany visiters about ; a custom 
not to be so soon changed. Still the disposition of the men here, is 
ingenuous, brave, upright, and good ; and that of the women retiring 
and modest — not gazing at men as if without bashfulness. Such 
characteristics and such usages must be considered as estimable, and 
we think that you also would not dislike them. 

There is a spring near the town, the water of which 
is strongly impregnated with sulphur, and supposed 
to be highly medicinal ; but what of thy various sup- 
plies, Hakodadi! An egg, like Csesar's wife, 
should be above suspicion. The number gotten by 
our mess, like the swords of the clan of Lochiel, was 
" a thousand ;" — the good ones, were " one." Hako- 
dadi, in Japanese, is " box-eating house ;" in Ameri- 
can memory it is questionable eggs. 

On the 3d of June, the Powhatan and the Missis- 
sippi started on their return to Simoda : we looked 
upon the departure from Hakodadi as the culmina- 



THE FOG. 311 

ting point of the cruise. When we reached the en- 
trance to the harbor, a sudden and dense fog settled 
on us — 

" The mist-like banners claspM the air, 
As clouds with clouds embrace/' 

We ran a little distance, whistling for the want of 
sight, but at the fog signal of one gun from the flag- 
ship, came to anchor. In an hour the fog lifted like 
a blanket, and opened like a funnel, when both steam- 
ers, with a stiff wind that enabled them also to make 
sail, ran out of the straits. 



312 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

After a monotonous run of four days, Foogee^ 
like a colossal cenotaph to dead beauty, showed far 
up before us, and in three hours we were again at an- 
chor in Simoda harbor. We learned, that the com- 
missioners of the treaty were there awaiting the re- 
turn of the commodore ; that Simoda by imperial 
edict had been declared an imperial city ; that Mima- 
saka-no-kami, prince of Mimasaka, had been ap- 
pointed first, and Tsusuki Suruga-no-kami, prince of 
Suruga, had been appointed second governor of the 
place ; also that the last-named, and Takeiro Utsi 
Seitaro, imperial financier and member of the board 
of revenue, had been added to the number of com- 
missioners. 

Conferences with those functionaries were held in 
the temple ashore, and the following articles as ad- 
ditional to those of the treaty of the 31st of March 
were agreed to : — 



ABBITIONAL ARTICLES. 313 

Additional regulatiens, agreed io between Commodore Matthew C. Perry, 
special envoy to Japan from the United States of America, and Ha- 
yashi Daigalcu-no-lco.mi ; Ido, Prince of T'sus-sima ; Izawa, Prince 
of MimasoM ; TsudzuJci, Prince of Suruga ; Udono, member of the 
board of revenue ; Take-no-uchi Sheitaro, and Matsusaki Michitaro, 
commissioners of the Emperor of Japan, on behalf of their respective 
governments. 

Article I. — ■ The imperial governors of Simoda will place watch 
stations wherever they deem best, to designate the limits of their 
jurisdiction ; but Americans are at liberty to go through them, unre- 
stricted, within the limits of seven Japanese ri, or miles ; and those 
who are found transgressing Japanese laws may be apprehended by 
the police and taken on board their ships. 

Article II. — Three landing places shall be constructed for the 
boats of merchant-ships and whale-ships resorting to this port ; one 
at Simoda, one at Kakizaki, and the third at the brook lying south- 
east of Centre Island. The citizens of the United States will, of 
course, treat the Japanese officers with proper respect. 

Article III. — Americans, when on shore, are not allowed access 
to military establishments or private houses without leave ; but they 
can enter shops and visit temples as they please. 

Article lY. — -Two temples, the Eioshen at Simoda, and the 
Yokushen at Kakizaki, are assigned as resting-places for persons in 
their walks, until public houses and inns are erected for their con- 
venience. 

Article V. — Near the Temple Yokushen, at Kakizaki, a burial- 
ground has been set apart for Americans, where their graves and 
tombs shall not be molested. 

Article VI. — It is stipulated in the treaty of Kanagawa, that 
coal will be furnished at Hakodadi ; but as it is very difficult for the 
Jappjiese to supply it at that port. Commodore Perry promises to 
mention this to his government, in order that the Japanese govern- 
ment may be relieved from the obligation of making that port a coal 
depot. 

Article YII. — It is agreed that henceforth the Chinese language 

14 



314 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

shall not be employed in official communications between the two 
governments, except when there is no Dutch interpreter. 

Article VIII. — A harbor-master and three skilful pilots have 
been appointed for the port of Simoda. 

Article IX, — Whenever goods are selected in the shops, they 
shall be marked with the name of the purchaser and the price agreed 
upon, and then be sent to the Goyoshi, or government office, where 
the money is to be paid to Japanese officers, and the articles delivered 
by them. 

Article X. — The shooting of birds and animals is generally for- 
bidden in Japan, and this law is therefore to be observed by all Amer- 
icans. 

Article XI. — It is hereby agreed that five Japanese ri, or miles, 
be the limit allowed to Americans at Hakodadi, and the require- 
ments contained in Article I. of these regulations, are hereby made 
also applicable to that port within that distance. 

Article XII. — His Majesty the Emperor of Japan is at liberty 
to appoint whoever he pleases to receive the ratification of the treaty 
of Kanagawa, and give an acknowledgment on his part. 

It is agreed that nothing herein contained shall in any way aiFect 
or modify the stipulations of the treaty of Kanagawa, should that be 
found to be contrary to these regulations. 

In witness whereof, copies of these additional regulations have 
been signed and sealed in the English and Japanese languages by 
the respective parties, and a certified translation in the Dutch lan- 
guage, and exchanged by the commissioners of the United States 
and Japan. 

Simoda, Japan, June 17, 1854. 

M. C. PEKKY, 
Commander-in-Chief of the U. S. Naval Forces, East India y 
China, and Japan Seas, and Special Envoy to Japan. 

The question of port regulations and pilotage was 
also mooted and a paper prepared and agreed to cer- 
tifying :— 



ADDITIONAL ARTICLES. 315 

That Yohatsi, Hikoyemon, and Dshirobe, had been appointed Pi- 
lots for American vessels entering or departing from the port of Si- 
moda, and, 

That the following rates for pilotage had been established by the 
proper authorities, viz. : — 

For vessels drawing over eighteen American feet .$15 00 

For vessels drawing over thirteen and less than eighteen feet. .$10 00 
For vessels drawing under thirteen feet $5 00 

These rates shall be paid in gold or silver coin, or its equivalent in 
goods ; and the same shall be paid for piloting vessels out, as well as 
into port. 

When vessels anchor in the outer roads and do not enter the inner 
harbor, only half the above rates of compensation shall be paid to 
the pilots. 

As the Japanese in all their interviews, and in 
their last stipulations, had manifested a preference 
for articles of compact to be in the Dutch language 
for a mutually clear understanding, rather than in 
their own, or the Chinese, the above was also pre- 
pared in Dutch by the consent of the American op- 
perbevelhebber : — 

Dit dient om te verklaren, dat Yohatsi, Hikoyemon, en Dsirobe 
benoemd zyn als loodsen voor schepenvan de Yereenigde Staten de 
haven van Simoda binnenkomende, of uitgaande ; en dat het loon 
voor de loodsen door de bevoegde overheid is vastgesteld geworden 
als volgt : 
Voor schepen over 18 Amerikaansche voeten diep in het 

water $15 00 

Voor schepen over 13 en minder dan 18 voeten diep $10 00 

Yoor schepen under 13 Am : voeten diep $5 00 

Dit loon zal betaald worden in gouden of zilveren munt of met 
eene gelyke waarde in goederen; en hetzelfde zal betaald worden 
voor het binnen komen als wel als voor het uitgaan. 



316 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Als schepen in den buitenhaven ankeren er niet naar binnen gaan, 
zal alleen de helft van de hierboven vastgestelde loonen worden be- 
taald. 

Op last van den Opperbevelhehber, 

Silas Bent, 
Liutenant Adjudant, 
Goedgeheurd 

M. C. Perry, 
Opperbevelhehber van de Oorlogsmagt van de Vereenigde Stolen 
in de zeeen van Oost Indie, China, en Japan. 

Eene ware vertaling, 

A. L. C. PORTMAN. 

V. S. Stoom Fregat Mississippi, 

Simoda, Japan den 22sten Juny, 1854. 

It may be tbat the veneration, in which the memory 
of lyeyas, is held by the Japanese, had much to do 
with the making of the treaty. Notwithstanding 
this lyeyas, charged with the guardianship of the sou 
of Taico, who was the husband of his granddaughter, 
usurped his powers and seized the ziogoonship for 
himself, still, barring his perfidy, he may be con- 
sidered the great Lycurgus of Japan. His laws and 
influence endured longer than those of the ruler of 
Sparta. During his usurpation he took the names of 
Daifusama and Ongonchio, and with the honors that 
wait on success, about which it boots nothing to inquire, 
— at his death he was deified by impotent ziogoon- 
ship. Such was the reverence, in which lyeyas was 
and still is held, with a people, in whose annals, a 
century is spoken of as yesterday, that his will was 
not only law, but any wish, that he was known to 



• THE DUTCH IN JAPAN. 317 

have expressed, became sacred. He it was who first 
granted the privilege of intercourse with the Dutch : 
and that nation, instead of submitting to acts which 
would cause any cheeks to tingle, but those of great 
moral obliquity or meerschaum stupidity — instead 
of submitting to the durance vile of Dezima, and 
trampling upon the symbol of a Savior's sufferings 
— had it in their power to exact anything, by ex- 
pressing a wish or determination to leave their fan- 
shaped prison factory : but they are old fogies, and 
their course shows, that to stupidity they add stultifi- 
cation. 

The contempt for mercantile pursuits, and the rev- 
enue derived therefrom, ascribed by the Dutch writers, 
to the '' Japonicadom" of Japan, is all leather and 
prunella. The exchequer of the princes at times, is ex- 
ceedingly limited and they are willing at such times to 
get funds and a wife, by taking the daughter of some 
wealthy merchant as one of their better halves. The 
quid pro quo to the father, for the dimes, that the 
patrician son-in-law may take from his coffers, is the 
privilege of wearing his coat-of-arms on the sleeve of 
his garments. 

But I have wandered from lyeyas. This apothe- 
osized usurper, enjoined upon his people to have 
nothing to do with Europeans, and our country not 
being known at the time of this injunction, and of 
course not included in such a designation, the hermet- 
Ics may have thought, they could make a mere tiiaty 



318 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

of amity (and not of commerce, as has been stated), 
without mental reservation, with the United States. 
Then, too, the Japanese have an intelligent and ex- 
cessive curiosity upon all subjects of information, and 
they contend, that inventions and discoveries are 
made now in such quick succession, that no nation 
may keep pace with them, that has not access to the 
world. 

While it must remain on record, that as the Ameri- 
cans were the first to deny one cent of tribute, and 
put an end to Tripolitan piracy, they were also the 
first to break down the unsocial barrier, which the 
" kingdom of the virgin of the sun" had hedged itself 
with, yet the Japanese have now declared their pur- 
pose to make treaties, with all nations similar to the 
one made with the United States, and they have since 
done so with the English through Sir James Sterling, 
though his compact is not as good as that of the 
Americans — the statements of the London press to 
the contrary, because it contains no clause at once 
granting to them any privilege, which any other nation 
may obtain from the Japanese. 

The Japanese were much concerned about the siege 
of Silistria, and knowing the vulnerability of their 
country, Russia from her proximity to them, is the 
great bug-bear. They were told by the English at 
Nangasaki, that the French were also coming up 
there, and knowing that these two nations, and that 
of Ohowstoff were at war. they were much concerned 



THE CURRENCY. 319 

for fear, these enemies should meet and have a fight in 
their waters, and for the purpose of preserving and 
securing the inviolability and neutrality of their 
countrj'- effectually, they make treaties with all the 
parties, maugre the injunction of the great lyeyas, 
and their declarations to us of a few months before. 

The Japanese were to have had a bazar opened at 
Simoda on our return from Hakodadi, when our offi- 
cers might procure the curios of Japanese lacquer, 
porcelain, crape, &c., but they were quite dilatory in 
getting it ready, and urged as the cause, the non- 
arrival of some junks from Osacca (pronounced like 
the city of Oaxaca in ^' Maheco," or Mexico), the sea- 
port of Meaco. In the meantime, at the temple Leo- 
senthsi, daily conferences were held between some 
financial officers from Yedo, the first lieutenant- 
governor, Kewakawa Kahei, and second lieutenant 
governor, Isa Sintshiro, first and second presidents 
of the board of revenue, on the part of the Japanese, 
and Pursers William Speiden of the Mississippi, and 
J. C. Eldridge of the Powhatan, on the part of the 
United States, to settle the very important question 
of the relative value of the coins and currency of the 
two countries. The result was anything but satis- 
factory. 

The Japanese commenced by stating that the tael 
was their decimal basis, in their system of weights 
and measures. As one of our cents was ten mills, so 
one of their taels is ten mace. Next to the tael conies 



320 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

the canderine^ then the cash. But this is as to weights. 
Their monetary system, while adopting the same 
nomenclature, is very different. The coin denomi- 
nated a tael with them is equal to 1,000 cash ; a tael 
weight of ^silver, is equal to two ^a^&, and five cande- 
rines, of currency ; or 2.25 tael coin, or 2,250 cash. 
A tael weight of gold is equal to 19 taels^ or 19,000 
cash. 

They had no means of assaying the American, 
Mexican, and Spanish dollar, but presuming them all 
to be of good silver, they proceeded to determine the 
relative value with their coins by iv eight ; a silver 
dollar was found to be, by this standard, 7.12 mace 
— equivalent to a little over 1,600 cash. Our twenty 
dollar goldpiece was of 8.8 mace weight, and estima- 
ting the mace weight of gold at 1,900 cash, the piece 
was deemed by them equal in value to 16,720 cash^ or 
$10.45 of our money. This made the gold dollar 
worth fifty -two cents ; and silver to bear the propor- 
tion to gold of 1 to 8.44. 

But little is known of the metaliferous history of 
Japan, further than its territory, in many places, is 
very auriferous, and that the mining of gold is an 
imperial monopoly. The Japanese founded their val- 
uatioii by the price of bullion as regulated by their 
law or imperial decree, being assured that as long as 
Japan was excluded from all social and commercial 
intercourse with other nations, and formed a little 
world of its own, that a system of this kind might be 



THE PRECIOUS METALS. 321 

carried on, without prejudice to the rights of any ; 
the Japanese government by putting a fictitious value 
on their coin, or adopting the system of seignorage, 
no doubt did so to take away the motive and induce- 
ment for the exportation of tlieir specie for purposes 
of profit. Their great philosopher, Arai Trikayo-no- 
kami^ compared the mineral production of a country 
to its frame and bones, and the products of the soil 
to the flesh of the body, which should always be in 
due proportion. The bones, he said, once removed, 
could not be replaced. In addition to an adherence 
to this doctrine, it has been a belief among the Japa- 
nese ever since their intercourse with the Portuguese, 
who showed particular avidity for the procurement 
of their bullion, that it was the policy of foreigners to 
drain Japan of this resource, that it might fall an 
easier prey to conquest when thus impoverished. 

The monetary system of Japan will require such 
almost radical alteration, that it forms their objec- 
tion, and presents the greatest hinderance to commer- 
cial intercourse with others. The non-exportation of 
bullion, must render trade a very difiScult thing, and 
would have the effect, as at Nangasaki with the Dutch 
and Chinese, of making the government banker for 
both parties to a bargain, in buying and selling, and 
all payments and receipts to pass through the hands 
of its officers. 

The government of Japan is now one of progress ; 
and they admit their willingness to make improve- 

14* 



822 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

ments in it ; but these improvements must not be hur- 
ried ones, but with due foresight and proper precau- 
tion — slowly and gradually: fearing, to use their 
simile, that unaccustomed to light, too much of its 
glare at one time, would dazzle and produce blind- 
ness. 

After the survey of the harbor of Simoda, buoys 
were placed upon the rocks discovered, surmounted 
with poles from which waved little flags that we had 
made ; and on one side of the entrance to the harbor 
had been placed a large sign to indicate the local- 
ity of a dangerous rock that lies in mid-channel of the 
entrance. The Japanese objected to the presence of 
these flags, put there by us, on the grounds that it 
looked as if we had taken possession of the place, 
and on their promising to keep their places filled 
with their little customhouse-flag, they were permitted 
to remove ours. 

They furnished a sample of their coal, which was 
brought aboard in hampers. It was from the interior, 
and mere surface coal, they not having any knowledge 
of how it should be mined. They might be able to 
furnish it at thirty dollars per ton : it could be landed 
there from the United States or England for twenty- 
five dollars. When they acquire the knowledge of 
working their mines, and have the roads to convey it 
to the seaboard, it may be different. 

Here, as at Hakodadi, after paying for them, 
stones of the requisite size were procured for the 



TASTE FOR MUSIC. 823 

Washington monument. Two of their long, sharp, 
copper-fastened pine-boats, with their peculiar sculls, 
ordered to be made previously, being completed, were 
hoisted on board of the storeship Southampton to be 
sent to the United States. Our band performed in 
the large temple-yard ashore. The governor of the 
place allowed the poorer classes to come within the 
enclosure, and the attention and delight with which 
they listened, and their asking permission to present 
the musicians with fruit, showed that they were both 
fonder and had more appreciation of pleasant strains 
than the stolid Chinaman, who acknowledges no 
music save his horrible nasal screech, or stupid tom- 
tom. 

A theatrical performance was given on board which 
was attended by the commissioners. The body of the 
marine, Williams, was brought from Yokohama in a 
Japanese boat in charge of some of his messmates, 
and re-interred near the poor fellow killed on the 
Powhatan, in the spot set apart in the Kakizaki tem- 
ple ground, for an American cemetery. 

On the longest day in the year, the 21st of June, 
the bazar so long looked for, was announced ready. 
The articles were arranged in the temple Leosenthsi, 
money changing in a temple being a small thing with 
the Japanese. The quantity of articles exposed, were 
not at all proportioned to the number who wished to 
purchase, and there was much disappointment. The 
Japanese made the excuse that they had not sufficient 



824 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

time allowed them for the making of articles. The 
commodore first visited the place, and found the arti- 
cles ticketed with excessive prices ; particularly when 
seventeen cents per day may be regarded as the 
average price of Japanese labor. He intimated to 
the commissioners his displeasure at this, but these 
functionaries, who had no doubt thus fixed things, 
very adroitly gave it to be understood that the reduc- 
tion of the prices of things at the vendue was a mat- 
ter rather below their position. The method in the 
madness of these official gentry was no doubt this : 
there were a number of articles in this bazar similar 
to those presented by their government to ours at 
Yokohama, and by affixing these high prices they 
thought to give increased value to the others, in our 
eyes. 

It was determined to dispose of the articles by lot- 
tery, so that all might procure something. They were 
principally crapes and silks, and specimens of porce- 
lain and lacquered ware. The first-named fabrics, 
I shrewdly suspect, may not have been of Japanese 
manufacture, but probably were sent from Chapoo in 
China, by the junks to Loo-Choo, and thence in their 
own to Japan. The amount of silks and crapes of the 
finest texture made in their own country is not very 
great, and no doubt entirely consumed by the higher 
castes. Siebold says, that their most beautiful silks are 
woven by high-born criminals, who are confined upon 
a small, rocky, unproductive island, deprived of their 



MANUFACTURES. 325 

property, and obliged to pay for the proTisious with 
which they are supplied by sea, with the produce of 
their manual labor ; and that the exportation of 
these silks is prohibited. 

The Japanese porcelain is of the purest, and sur- 
passes in delicacy and transparency any that France 
and England can offer. The finest, with little raised 
images upon it, it is said, is made of a peculiar clay, 
found in the vicinity of Meaco, and which is now 
nearly exhausted. Out of little cups made of this 
ware, the saki is drunk. 

The specimens of lacquered ware, consisting of 
cabinets, bowls, cups, trays, and despatch boxes, of 
different hues, were of great beauty, and put many 
of us out of conceit with our purchases of similar 
things of the Chinese. A most delicate-hued red ap- 
peared to be most prized by the Japanese, but the 
American taste was for the black and a rich maroon 
color. 

The process of lacquering is represented as being 
a slow and tedious one. The workmen engaged over 
the lacquer in a boiling state, have their nostrils pro- 
tected from its fumes. The varnish is the resinous 
product of a shrub called verosino-ki^ or varnish-plant, 
and requires a tedious preparation to fit it for use. 
The coloring matter is mixed with it, by a long-con- 
tinued rubbing on a copper plate ; and the opera- 
tion of lacquering is as tedious as the preliminaries. 
Five different coats, and sometimes more, are put 



826 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

on the article, suffered to dry, and then finely pum- 
miced, until the lacquer acquires the requisite soft- 
ness and brilliancy. Mother-of-pearl shells are inlaid 
and subjected to the same polishing process. The 
lacquering once thoroughly dry, it is impervious to 
the action of liquid heat, and although not a very 
pleasant idea to us, who are accustomed to the use 
of china-ware, the Japanese partake of hot soups and 
other dishes from vessels thus made. Boiling water 
may be poured upon the Japanese lacquer with im- 
punity. 

The tea of Japan has been represented by some 
writers as being superior to that of China, but what 
we saw at the entertainment, was not at all compara- 
ble to that of Cathay. Before the warm water is 
poured on them, the leaves have a very coarse ap- 
pearance, and from the tea when made there arises 
not that delightful aroma that salutes the nostrils 
when you drink the fine beverage at Acow's in Can- 
ton ; indeed, they are no doubt indebted to China for 
the finest teas they drink, and perhaps the finest silks 
they wear. 

One does not observe, in going about in Japan, the 
propensity for street-gambling which marks the towns 
of China — from the juvenile pigtail playing with the 
vendor for the fifth of an orange, upward. The Japan- 
ese appear more elevated than this. When you notice 
playing it is generally in the house, and not gaming, 
but with a board and pieces resembling our chess. It 



JAPANESE GAME OF CHESS. 327 

was difficult to acquire much knowledge of the con- 
test by overlooking ; indeed, the contestants gener- 
ally desisted very perversely during our presence. 
Our fleet-surgeon. Dr. Daniel S. Green, however, with 
his taste for chess, and an obstinacy of study which 
marks his investigation of every subject which he 
undertakes, deciphered the game of the Japanese, and 
this is the doctor's account of it, from the best infor- 
mation he could obtain : — 

" The Japanese game of Sho-ho-ye corresponds to 
our game of chess. This game is played by two per- 
sons, with forty pieces (twenty on either side), and 
upon a chequer-board of eighty-one squares — nine on 
each side. The board is of one uniform color, though 
the square might be colored, as with us, for the sake 
of convenience. The pieces are also of one uniform 
color, as they are used (at pleasure) by either party, 
as his own, after being captured from the adversary. 
They are of various sizes, are long and wedge-shaped, 
being at the same time sharpened from side to side, 
in front, and the name of each piece is inscribed upon 
it — both the original and the one assumed upon be- 
ing reversed— (as below). Each player distinguishes 
his men, or pieces by always having the pointed and 
thin end forward. But they would be more readily 
known if the back parts of all were painted with 
some decided and striking color, as that part of his 
own men is seen by each player only, and if the 
fronts of all the men were painted of some other 



828 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

color, as that part of the adversary's piece is seen by 
either player only. They are laid flat upon the board 
(front forward), and thus their names are plainly vis- 
ible. They capture, as in chess, by occupying the 
places of the captured pieces. The king, Oho-shio, 
being the chief piece, can not remain in check — and 
when check-mated the game is lost. 

'' The pieces are named, and are placed upon the 
board as follows : — 

^^ Oho-shio (king) — centre square, first row. 

^'Kin-shio (gold), or chief counsellor — upon first 
row, and on either side of Oho-shio. 

" Gin-shio (silver, or sub-counseller) — upon first 
row, and one on each square next outside Kin-shio. 

"Kiema (flying-horse) — upon first row, and one 
on each square next outside G-in-shio. 

*^^ Kioshia (fragrant chariot) — one upon each cor- 
ner square, first row. 

''Hishia (flying chariot) — on second square, sec- 
ond row, right side of the board. 

^*^Kakuko (the horn) — on second square, second 
row, left side of the board. 

"Ho-hei (the soldiery) — on all the nine squares 
of the third row. 

"The moves and powers of the pieces are as below, 
only noting that in capturing there is no deviation 
from them, as with us in the case of pawns. 

" Oho'Shio moves and takes on one square in any 
direction . 



JAPANESE GAME OF CHESS. 329 

^'Kin-shio as the Oho-shio, except that he can not 
move diagonally backward. 

" Neither of the above are ever reversed or acquire 
different powers ; but all the pieces below may be 
reversed (at the option of the player) when they 
move to and from any square in any of the adversa- 
ry's first three rows, and they do thereby acquire 
different powers, as well as different names. 

" Gin-shio moves and takes as the Oho-shio ^ except 
that he can not move directly to either side, or di- 
rectly backward. When he is reversed, or turned 
over, he becomes a Gm-Nari-Kin^ and acquires all 
the powers (and those alone) of the Kin-shio. 

''Kiema has the move of our knight, except that he 
is strictly confined to two squares forward and one 
laterally, and can in no case make more than four 
moves. When he is reversed he becomes a Kiema- 
Nari-Kin^ with all the powers (and those alone) of 
the Kin-shio, 

''Kioshia moves directly forward onlp^ but that may 
be any number of steps. He may be reversed up on 
either of the first three rows of the adversary, and 
then becomes a Kioshia-Nari-Kin^ with all the pow- 
ers (and those alone) of the Kin-shio, 

"Hishia has the entire power of our castle, and 
when he is reversed he assumes the name of Rioho 
(the dragon), and acquires, in addition to his former 
moves, all those of the Oho-shio, 

"Kakuko has the entire powers of our bishopj, and 



830 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

when reversed, assumes the name of Riome (the 
dragoness), and acquires, in addition to his former 
moves, all those of the Oho-shio. 

"Ho moves forward one step only at a time, and 
may be reversed upon either of the first three rows 
of the adversary ; when so reversed, he becomes a 
Ho-Nari-Kin^ and acquires all the powers of the 
Kin-shio. 

''Besides the preceding moves and powers, any piece 
which has been captured may be replaced upon the 
board, at the discretion of the player — as follows, 
viz. : when it is his move, instead of moving one of 
his men he can replace any one of the captured pieces 
upon any unoccupied square whatever, observing to 
keep that side up which it was entitled to originally ; 
but it may be reversed at any move thereafter if to 
QY from any square in the before-mentioned first three 
rows of the adversary — and observing, further, that 
he can not replace a Ho (or pawn) on any column 
upon which there is already one of his own, i. e., he 
can not double a Ho (or pawn). 

" It may be further stated, that no piece can pass 
over the head of any other piece in its move, except 
the KiemaP 

Preparations were made for taking what was then 
thought to be our final departure from the Japanese 
empire. The commodore had transferred his flag 
from the Powhatan to the Mississippi, like Byron, 
not precisely because he ever could write an address 



commodore's live stock. 331 

to the ocean, upon whose bosom his stereotyped 
speeches say he has wasted the dearest action of 
'' some forty years of mi/ life," but because Byron had 
a weakness at Pisa for some mastiffs, cats, pea-fowls, 
&c. ; and when the American opperbevelhebber again 
had his broad pennant floating over the Mississippi, 
her decks were ornamented with Tray, Blanche, and 
Sweetheart, in the shape of Japanese dogs, presented 
him, with pug-nosed, billiard-balled heads, and eyes so 
projecting and divided, that some unfortunate estrange- 
ment seemed to have taken place between them. The 
poop-deck was ornamented with no-tailed Japanese 
cats, or their spinal columns extending to the point 
which would have pleased Lord Monboddo, while 
under the break of the poop, in cages, swung beauti- 
ful pheasants, mandarin ducks, and some graceful 
singing-birds. 

Agreeably to instructions from the government to 
make inquiries as to some of our unfortunate country- 
men who were supposed either to have been lost at 
sea, or to be held in captivity on the island of For- 
mosa, it was ordered that the Macedonian should be 
sent to the harbor of Keelong for that purpose, ac- 
companied by the Supply ; also to ascertain the prob- 
ability of the procurement of coal in that vicinity, and 
its proximity to the seashore. This done, the Mace- 
donian was to proceed to Manilla, to leave there the 
three '^ Sally Baboo" men picked up by the " South- 
ampton" at sea, with the American consul, that they 



382 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

might be sent back to tlieir native land, which, by the 
chart, was not very far distant from Luzon. 

On the 23d of June the Mississippi was gotten un- 
der way, and ran out to anchor in what might be 
waggishly termed the '' outer harbor" of Simoda, a 
miserable roadstead off which a low rock island can 
not keep the sea, where all next day we rolled and 
wallowed. 

On Sunday (we left Japan each time on Sunday) 
the 25th of June, signal was made for the ships to 
weigh anchor. The Powhatan took the Southamp- 
ton in tow, and ran out of the port of Simoda. The 
Macedonian and Supply endeavored to do the same, 
but the wind proving baffling, they did not succeed. 
A long string of Japanese boats made fast to the 
former and tried to tow her out, but were as success- 
ful as a June-bug tied by a thread would be in trying 
to move the boy who held the other end, so the noble 
razee had to let go her anchor to avoid going on the 
rocks that encase the narrow entrance of the port of 
Simoda. The Supply did the same. The Missis- 
sippi, after some delay, and a number of gyrations, 
took her departure accompanied by the Powhatan 
with the storeship. 

During the day, we were running down the west- 
ward side of the chain of naked islands that extend 
to Loo-Choo. At four o'clock, Foogee Yama, from 
his cloudy eyry, was seen like an angel's wing, and 
then withdrawn. Well, good-by, Foogee ; admiration 



ISLAND OF 00. 383 

continued, is the most tiresome of things, and one can 
tire of the brilliancy of Burke, with his — ^^ Around 
whose base things may moulder, but upon whose 
summit eternity must play." 

On the fourth day of the run, after those charming 
incidents of sea-life — sky overhead and water all 
around — we were abreast of the island of Oo, which 
the severe gale encountered in July, 1853, on our re- 
turn from our first visit to Japan, prevented an ex- 
amination of, that the correctness of a harbor laid 
down on a French chart, might be ascertained. The 
ships laid off for three hours, during which time Lieu- 
tenants Maury and Webb went ashore, taking with 
them bags of pork and bread. The people on shore 
at first appeared quite alarmed at their approach. 
Their dress was the same as those of the Loo-Chooans. 
Some fowls and potatoes were obtained from them by 
giving them some pork and bread in exchange ; they 
refused money. It is supposed that we are the first 
Christian people that ever had communication with 
these people ; rather an absurd supposition, consider- 
ing the charts and surveys that have been made in 
those seas by other nations, before we had either the 
opportunity ,or desire to know anything about them. 

The next day, off the Great Loo-Choo island, the 
Southampton was cast off, and proceeded to Hong 
Kong. That afternoon we saw quite a large ship 
ahead. She was coming down before the wind with 
studding-sails set. It was thought desirable to speak 



334 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

her J having had no mail intelligence since March, in 
the bay of Yedo. Our colors were hoisted, and the 
commodore directed a forward-gun to be fired, to at- 
tract attention. The stranger, however, witliout ap- 
pearing to notice it, changed his course and then 
changed it again, declining to raise his ensign, and 
keeping his nation to himself. Another gun was fired, 
still no colors did he show. By this time the two 
steamers having come up with him he lay to, and 
hoisted English colors. Upon sending a boat to know 
what he meant by such conduct, it appeared that he 
feared meeting the Russian squadron in that vicinity, 
and took us for Russian steamers, and even after 
seeing the American ensign, thought it might be de- 
signed to entrap him. The captain expressed regret 
for the detention he had occasioned, and by newspa- 
pers from him we had the first intelligence of Eng- 
land and France having united in hostilities for the 
sultan. The ship was the Great Britain, from Shang- 
hae, with a valuable cargo of teas and silks, for Lon- 
don. She would have proved a precious prize for 
Pontiatine. 

The next day we anchored in the roadstead of 
Napa, Loo-Choo. The first intelligence from Captain 
Glasson, of the Lexington, was that a seaman from 
his ship had been found in the waters of Junk har- 
bor dead, and expressed the belief that the man had 
come to his death by violence. An investigation of 
the matter showed that the man had not only been 



DIFFICULTY AT LOO-CHOO. 335 

killed by the natives, but that he deserved to have 
been killed. The poor Loo-Chooans being very much 
frightened about the occurrence, and the local officers 
of Napa regarding the offence of the man as a morti- 
fying disgrace to their country, did not make a true 
report of the circumstances to the prince-regent, and 
that high functionary, upon a demand being made 
upon him by the commodore, himself misled, reported 
that the man had fallen into the water when drunk 
and been drowned. The commodore demanded a 
full investigation according to their laws, though sat- 
isfied at the time that the man Board had been guilty 
of a most heinous offence. From this it appeared 
that the man had been first stoned by the crowd and 
badly wounded, and then fell into the water and was 
drowned ; after the commission of an offence — to use 
the prince-regent's language — that ^' All men detest 
and are angry at, and would, without thinking, strike 
and wound the one guilty of it." The sentences ad- 
judged by the Loo-Chooan tribunal, were to deprive 
the mayor of Napa of his rank, and the deputy-magis- 
trates of their offices, for having made erroneous re- 
ports to the regent ; Tokisi, the leader of the mob 
who stoned, was banished to Pachung Sang for life, 
while five others were banished to Taiping San for 
eight years. 

The severity of this punishment was very great, and 
it is to be regretted that during the session of the 
tribunal that decreed it, the commodore resorted to 



836 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

the menace of sending marine officers ashore to exam- 
ine their forts, and then took possession, with some 
marines — the United States bullying Loo-Choo ! as 
Wise said to Bynum, '' bullying a fly !" The poor 
prince-regent was frightened nearly out of his senses ; 
he came off himself to the Mississippi with the poor 
devil Tokisi, with a halter about his neck, offering to 
give him up to American custody, prostrating himself 
before the commodore in his cabin — a pitiable spec- 
tacle. He is next addressed by the American " Op- 
perbevelhebber," in a communication commencing 
'' Your Highness." 

We ascertained from the master's-mate who had 
been left in charge of the invalids and coal-shed 
ashore in February, that a few days after our depar- 
ture for Japan, the Russian admiral Pontiatine, with 
the frigate Diana (since lost by an earthquake at 
Simoda), a corvette, and the steamer Vostock, vis- 
ited Napa roads, staying some days, during which 
time he drilled his men ashore, and grazed his cattle. 
He had not then certain intelligence of England and 
France having gone to war with his country, but 
notwithstanding his assurance of the proximity of 
such a thing, as also of superior English and French 
naval forces, he generously assisted the English ship 
Robena (which had been there to bring the successor 
of Dr. Bettelheim) to get off the reef, taking the while, 
her cargo of coolies aboard of his own ship. 

On Sunday, the Rev. E. H. Moreton, the successor 



SERMONS ON SHIPBOARD. 337 

of Dr. Bettelheim, a pleasant-voiced little preacher, 
with mild face and cockney aspiration of the letter A, 
read the English church-service, and delivered a dis- 
course on board of the Mississippi. He had come 
with his wife and child from England to dwell in 
Napa, as spiritual teacher to a people who are about 
as well prepared to receive Christianity, as they were 
when his predecessor, six years before, went among 
them. The men and officers of the squadron raised 
an amount of money for him before leaving. 

The next Sunday on board, a sermon, blasphemous 
in character, was preached by a missionary, in which 
the American commodore was likened to another 
Jesus Christ, and a parallel deliberately instituted 
between our Savior's mission on earth and Commo- 
dore Perry's mission to Japan. That functionary sat 
on the quarter-deck, meanwhile listening to all this 
without evincing, so far as any one could perceive, 
the slightest displeasure. 

The steamers were coaled from shore by Loo-Chooan 
junks, during our stay ; the gunner of the Missis- 
sippi was sent to an island, called Reef island, in a 
boat, to see whether it was used as a female penal 
settlement as had been stated ; and we saw the Jap- 
anese junks departing, bearing away the rice of the 
island, some to Japan, some to Chapoo in China, 
where the sons of the wealthy in Loo-Choo are edu- 
cated without cost. 

The American opperbevelhebber seems to have had 
15 



338 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

a " would be a nun, and a wouldn't be a nun" idea 
of the status of Loo-Choo : In a letter to the secre- 
tary of the navy, as found in Senate-Document, No. 34 
of the XXXIIId Congress, he first says : '' I am 
constantly obtaining information confirmatory of the 
opinion that Loo-Choo^ Meyaco-Sima, and the Oho- 
Sima islands, are all dependencies of Japan." 

On the 18th of June, 1854, he writes : " The opin- 
ions expressed in my despatch. No. 41, have been con- 
firmed by subsequent observations, and Loo-Choo, it 
appears, is in a measure an independent sovereignty, 
holding only slight allegiance either to Japan or 
China, but preferring rather its relationship to the 
latter empire ; that the islands stretching from For- 
mosa to Kiusiu are all under its sovereignty, and are 
in such intercourse with the parent island^ Great Loo- 
Choo, as the imperfect character of their means of 
navigation will allow." 

In this despatch "No. 41," he says — like Cow- 
per's bird perched upon the church-steeple, " What 
says he?" " ; and are moreover told that Loo- 
Choo is a royal fief of the empire of Japan, though 
it is asserted by some writers, that it owes fealty only 
to the prince of Satsuma." 

How does this " confirm" the statements contained 
in the despatch of 18th of June, 1854 ? 

In the Pickwickian Gazette, published in the Eng- 
lish colony of Hong Kong, y'clept '' The China Mail," 
of the 27th of July, 1854, the demi-oflScial announce- 



COMPACT WITH LOO-CHOO. 339 

merit — of course in accordance with Secretary Ken- 
nedy's order — says : — 

" Having been assured by the commissioners at 
Yokohama, that Japan exercised no jurisdiction what- 
ever over Loo-Choo, the commodore proposed making a 
treaty with the regent and drew up a sketch of what 
he thought it desirable should be established by offi- 
cial sanction : with some unimportant modifications, 
this was accepted." 

According to Meylan, who was the Dutch opper- 
hoofed, the president of the factory at Desima, in his 
semi-annual audiences with the governor of Nanga- 
saki, among other things also takes upon himself an 
obligation to respect all vessels '' belonging to the 
Loo-Choo islands, they being subject to Japan." 

The American opperbevelhebber, however, after 
undergoing this pleasing state of uncertainty, thought 
he would " make assurance doubly sure, and take a 
bond" of the Loo-Chooans ; so the following com- 
pact was agreed to, very much on the part of the 
effeminate islanders, like the compact of the poor 
chicken with the horse in the stable: that if he 
didn't tread on his toes, he wouldn't tread on his 
toes : — 

Compact between the United States and the Kingdom of Loo-Choo, 
Signed at Napa, Great Loo-Choo, the llth day of July, 1854. 

Hereafter, whenever citizens of the United States come to Loo- 
Choo, they shall be treated with great courtesy and friendship. 
Whatever articles these persons ask for, whether from the officers or 



340 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

people, which the country can furnish, shall be sold to them ; nor 
shall the authorities interpose any prohibitory regulations to the people 
selling; and whatever either party may wish to buy, shall be ex- 
changed at reasonable prices. 

Whenever ships of the United States shall come into any harbor 
in Loo-Choo, they shall be supplied with wood and water at reason- 
able prices ; but if they wish to get other articles, they shall be pur- 
chasable only at Napa. 

If ships of the United States are wrecked on Great Loo-Choo, or 
on islands under the jurisdiction of the royal government of Loo- 
Choo, the local authorities shall despatch persons to assist in saving 
life ^nd property, and preserve what can be brought ashore till the 
ships of that nation shall come to take away all that may have been 
saved ; and the expenses incurred in rescuing these unfortunate per- 
sons, shall be refunded by the nation they belong to. 

Whenever persons from ships of the United States come ashore in 
Loo-Choo, they shall be at liberty to ramble where they please, with- 
out hinderance, or having officials sent to follow them, or to spy what 
they do; but if they violently go into houses, or trifle with women, 
or force people to sell them things, or do other such like illegal acts, 
they shall be arrested by the local officers, but not maltreated, and 
shall be reported to the captain of the ship to which they belong, for 
punishment by him. 

At Tuniai is a burial-ground for the citizens of the United States, 
where their graves and tombs shall not be molested. 

The government of Loo-Choo shall appoint skilful pilots, who 
shall be on the lookout for ships appearing off the island, and if one 
is seen coming toward Napa, they shall go out in good boats beyond 
the reefs to conduct her into a secure anchorage, for which service 
the captain shall pay the pilot, five dollars ; and the same for going 
out of the harbor beyond the reefs. 

Whenever ships anchor at Napa, the local authorities shall furnish 
them with wood at the rate of three thousand six hundred copper 
cash per thousand catties ; and with water at the rate of six hundred 
copper cash, (forty-three cents) for one thousand catties, or six bar- 
rels full, each containing thirty American gallons. 



CEREMONIES ON THE OCCASION. 841 

Signed in the English and Chinese languages by Commodore Mat- 
thew C. Perry, Commander-in-chief of the United States Naval 
Forces in the East India, China, and Japan seas, and special en- 
voy to Japan, for the United States; and by Sho Eu-fing, Super- 
intendent of affairs, (Tsu-li-kwan) in Loo-Choo; and Ba Eio-si, 
Treasurer of Loo-Choo at Shui, for the government of Loo-Choo, 
and copies exchanged this 11th day of July, 1854, or the reign 
HiEN-FUNG, 4th year, 6th moon, 17th day, at the Town-Hall of 
Napa. 

On landing to sign this rather singular document, 
the customary quantity of " boom-a-laddying" was 
indulged in, as per following order : — 

One large howitzer from the Mississippi. 

One large howitzer from the Powhatan. 

Twenty-four marines from the Mississippi. 

Twenty-four marines from the Powhatan. 

Band of music from the Mississippi. - 

Band of music from the Powhatan. * 

Each howitzer to be accompanied by a box of fixed ammunition, 
and their crews armed with cutlasses. 

The marines with^ muskets and twenty-four rounds of ball-car- 
tridges. 

The seamen to be dressed in white with straw hats. 

The marines in fatigue summer-dress. 

The officers in white pants, frock-coats, swords, epaulettes, and caps. 

The bandsmen in white. 

Two orderlies with their muskets to be detailed as an escort for the 
broad pennant. 

A flag-bearer and two seamen as a guard for the ensign. 

Our government should pay a little attention to the 
fantastic tricks, which its commodorial gentry cut up 
in such countries, as Loo-Choo : " fixed ammunition," 



842 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

'' cutlasses," and ^' ball-cartridges," taken ashore among 
a people whose forts are disarmed ; among whom not 
one offensive weapon was noticed after months of 
intercourse ; and whose nation, in its present condi- 
tion, reversing the remark of Chatham, might be 
driven with a crutch. 

And then too, two orderlies with muskets escort- 
ing 'Hhe broad pennant" — a kind of an ark of the 
covenant carried before, and the American " ensign" 
playing second fiddle behind! — just imagine such 
a procession ? It is equal to the swallow-tailed yel- 
low flag, that I saw one day carried behind a high 
functionary, as I passed his procession coming down 
from Sheudi. 

If a broad pennant means anything, it means this : 
a piece of bunting to designate an admiral's ship or 
boat in squadron sailing, or in harbor : a cynosure 
for all the other vessels, because from the ship that 
wears it, orders are signaled and dispositions directed ; 
but when it is taken from a main-truck, or from the 
commander-in-chief's boat, to be boom-a-laddyed on 
shore in a procession, it becomes meaningless, if not 
ridiculous ; a land ofHcer in the field had better fly a 
distinct flag over his marquee ; and an American 
commodore, who leaves his ship to land in an enemy's 
or friend's country, had better be provided by the 
navy department with a kind of '' white plame," like 
that of '' Harry of Navarre," or '' the broad pennant" 
had better be declared an oriflamme ; but all true 



CLOSE OP THE CEREMONIES. 343 

Americans have a weakness, wliicli runs in this wise : 
that the stars and stripes, are oriflamme enough. 

But it may be, that the commodore may be allow- 
ed to explain — to give some reason for boom-a-lad- 
dying ashore with his broad pennant, and having a 
sword-bearer to walk behind with his trusty blade in 
the streets of Simoda. In his notes to the secretary 
of the navy, of his second visit to Japan he says : — 

" I have adopted the two extremes — by an exhibi- 
tion of great pomp, when it could be properly dis- 
played, and by avoiding it, when such pomp would 
be inconsistent with the spirit of our institutions." 

This pomj)atic paragraph appears rather a non se- 
quitur ; unless it can be shown when ^n exhibition 
of great pomp is consistent with the spirit of our in- 
stitutions. 

The entente cordiale being established with the 
" kingdom of Loo-Choo," presents of agricultural 
implements and a hand cotton-gin, were made to the 
authorities, who returned air-plants and birds. A 
stone from the island was also procured for the Wash- 
ington monument. 

The commodore having entertained the regent and 
the authorities on board the flag-ship Mississippi with 
a supper and Ethiopian performance, the Lexington 
sailed for Hong Kong on the 15th, and two days, 
after — the anniversary of our first departure from 
Japan — we bid good-by to the Loo-Chooans, as much, 
no doubt, to their delight as our own. 



344 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

In getting off the Amakarimas, tlie Powhatan 
parted company with us, bound for Amoy and Ningpo, 
and in four days we had a Chinese pilot on board, 
and the next dropped anchor in the harbor of Hong 
Kongj China, from whose mail facilities we had been 
absent over half a year. 



LETTERS FROM HOME. 345 



CHAPTER XV. 

Letters : considering the rapid occurrence of events 
of moment now-a-days, and the lightning transmission 
of intelligence, it was with joy we got letters on our 
arrival at Hong Kong, having been for over half a 
year, so far as news was concerned, inhumed in a re- 
mote country. The official news was, that we were 
ordered home by way of California and South Amer- 
ica, at which all were overjoyed ; and the commodore 
was granted permission to return to the United 
States via Europe, at government expense. Many 
a poor fellow got letters that had been waiting for 
him in Hong Kong a long time, and at the same time 
letters from others of later date, that told that the 
writers of the former ones could never write again. 

We found in the harbor the ships of the surveying 
squadron under Commodore Ringgold, among which 
was the since ill-fated Porpoise. 

There had been no improvement in the intestine 
troubles. An American captain had been murdered 
by the Chinese ; and the dearly-beloved occupants of 
the hongs of Canton, feeling insecure in the posses- 

15* 



346 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

sion of their "filthy lucre" — for if the "chop dol- 
lar" of China is not filthy lucre, I know not what it 
is — the Mississippi proceeded to her old anchorage 
at Whampoa, and sent men and howitzers, as before, 
up to the city. The captain of the American ship 
Amity, having been murdered by two of his foreign 
crew, the next morning after our arrival through the 
intervention of " Judge Lynch," their bodies were 
seen suspended from either yard-arm of their vessel. 

The state of affairs in Canton being deemed immi- 
nent, the little jolly-boat English steamer, called the 
Queen, which the commodore had hired and left off 
the hongs, previous to our leaving for Japan in Janu- 
ary, ran down and took up another force to the city. 
A body of rebels had captured the wealthy and 
populous city Fuhshan, about tv/enty miles from Can- 
ton, and the mandarins were doing nothing to arrest 
their progress. One morning, for this purpose, a 
detachment of a thousand men under a brigadier, were 
quietly taking up their ground, when they were sur- 
prised by a party of rebels, and before they could 
seize their arms, some hundreds of them and their 
camp-followers were killed, and the rest escaped pell- 
mell into the city. The tents, matchlocks, and am- 
munition, were all carried off, and the brigadier was 
among the missing. 

I had an opportunity during this visit of seeing the 
largest fleet of the emperor, which had an immense 
number of streamers flying; and also at an early hour 



THE CHINESE REBELS. 347 

of making a visit to the tea-packing establishments 
at Honan, whose inmates appeared ready to decamp 
at short notice. 

Vessels going down the Pekiang were crowded 
with Chinese flying from the place, and the river 
steamers were chartered at enormous rates ; so that 
the total emigration to Macao and Hong Kong was 
not much under five thousand, including several men 
of distinction, such as the brothers of Heu Chang- 
kwang, the provincial treasurer, and their families, 
and of Puntingqua and his family, to Macao ; and 
Howqua and Eesing with their families to Hong 
Kong. 

On the 29th of July we were at Hong Kong, and 
the 11th of August saw us again at Whampoa, to- 
gether with that noble steam-frigate the Susquehanna, 
that had not long been back from a very interesting 
trip to Nanking. 

On the 15th of August, when taking our final de- 
parture from Whampoa, we saw a Dutch ship fired 
upon from a rebel battery ; also one of the mandarin 
boats, running up powder, but the fleetness of their 
sailing, and the bad gunnery of the Chinese, enabled 
them to go by unharmed. 

Having to wait the return of the Macedonian with 
Captain Abbott, to whom the command of the three 
remaining ships was to be transferred, the commo- 
dore fixed September 11th for the day of his depar- 
ture by the oriental steamer. In the meantime the 



348 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Susquehanna, which with the Mississippi, was to make 
the long stretch across the Pacific, departed for Si- 
nioda, Japan — on her first and only visit to that 
place — towing the Southampton, laden with coal, 
intended for the use of the two steamers in their run 
from Japan of over three thousand miles to Honolulu. 
The storeships Supply and Lexington were also de- 
spatched homeward by the way of the Cape of Good 
Hope. It is scarcely necessary to give the state of 
afi'airs in China at the time of the departure of these 
ships. The fighting of the Chinese — if fighting it 
might be called — continued, and we had reports one 
day how the city of Sling- Gin had been captured by 
the insurgents, and another day, that the imperialists 
still held the city of Gin- Sling. 

The Chinese government insists upon its officers, 
saying, when required to perform anything for it, 
what the Frenchman told the lady : '' Madam, if pos- 
sible^ it is done already ; if hnpossible^ it shall be 
done" — though placing no means at their disposal 
for accomplishing the desired result. 

The following being so very Chinese, I insert it. 
Thing-ling nor Tae-yung could not prevent the cap- 
ture of Woo-chang. On reading the report of its 
downfall, the emperor said : " It is impossible to 
repress my grief and indignation. That Tae-yung, 
though charged with two provinces, seems not to have 
had a single plan for their defence. Formerly we 
deprived him of official rank, with the hope that he 



CHINESE PRIDE. 349 

would exert himself and make amends for previous 
errors ; but lo ! he follows his old habits, and has 
thus brought disaster on a large portion of the em- 
pire ; this is most detestable and abominable. Let 
Tae-yung be instantly deprived of office, and handed 
over to the direction of Yang-pae. We also order 
Yang-pae to hasten to his new appointment, and place 
himself at the head of all the troops in those provin- 
ces, in order immediately to exterminate these rebels, 
and recover the provincial capital out of their hands ; 
afterward let him sweep awaj this pestilence, in 
order to fulfil the object for which we have intrusted 
him with this great command. Let him also en- 
deavor to ascertain what has become of all the offi- 
cers both civil and military who were formerly sta- 
tioned at Woo-chhang, and report. Respect this." 

But the Macedonian having gotten back from Ma- 
nilla, the time had arrived when Opperbevelhebber 
Perry was to leave in the mail-steamer. This inter- 
esting event took place on the 11th of September, 
one day after the date of the great naval-battle of his 
Hyperion brother on Lake Erie, and one before the 
battle of North Point, and three before the allied 
armies landed in the Crimea. Previous to this im- 
portant epoch, the American (.') merchants at Can- 
ton addressed him an epistle as characteristic as the 
speech of the 

" men of Coventry, 

Who came down to see 
Her gracious majesty V' 



350 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

This bijou of toadyism had this for a superscrip- 
tion : — 

His Excellency Commodore Matthew C. Perky, 

Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces U. S., in the East India ^ China, 

and Japan Seas, and late Envoy to Japan, ^c, Sfc, Sfc, 

They first acknowledged the promptitude with 
which he extended protection to their interests, so 
mucli neededj during his command in those seas. 

'' Protection." Commodore Perry arrived in the 
waters in the vicinity of Canton, on the 7th of April, 
1853, and on the 27th of the same month he ran up 
to Shanghae, and after a short stay there, he bundled 
off with all the ships he could to the island of Loo- 
Choo, where he lay inert from the 26th of May to 
the 2d day of July ; and did not return to China un- 
til August. The gentlemen who much do congregate 
on the rialto of Canton, address " His Excellency," 
concerning the magnitude of the interests, which re- 
quires protection, and the storeship Supply, like the 
other ships, not being required until the next visit 
to Japan, she is sent up to lay off the hongs. This 
tub to the mercantile whale, satisfied for a time, but 
when the period arrived for the return to Japan, 
luckily for '' His Excellency," the merchants suggested 
the charter of a miserable little English steamer, and 
he not regarding it his duty to inform the opium 
gentry, that the carronades of the Supply would af- 
ford more protection than the penny-whistle battery 
of the jolly-boat steamer, gladly withdrew the needed 



THE STEAMER QUEEK. 351 

storeship, and chartered the Queen. The puny craft 
when started in Hong Kong harbor, was amusmg. 
A Chinaman on one wheel-house with a bamboo-pole, 
prized the wheel over the '' centre," and four or five 
men being required at her " starting-bar," when they 
got her going they did not like to stop her, and she 
spun about the harbor like a chicken, minus his head. 
The arms of her wheels being wood, before getting 
over to Macao she broke off several. Her pop-guns, 
only two of which were aside, had perhaps never 
been " scaled," 

" And like gun well aimed, at duck or plover. 
Bear wide the mark and kick the owner over." 

As Hon. Humphrey Marshall said, in speaking of 
the protection afforded by the American opperbevel- 
hebber : — 

" What are the means ? A British steamer of one 
hundred and fifty tons, manned by twenty sailors and 
ten Chinese, and carrying an armament of four guns 
of four-pound calibre each. In the event of a disturb- 
ance, the Queen may suffice to transport the women 
and children of American citizens from the city, pro- 
vided they reach her decks without molestation ; but 
to defend the lives or property of American citizens 
here in the presence of an invading mob or a band 
of robbers, the provision made is not equal to any 
exigency whatever." 

After some vernacular of the shop — he went to 
Japan with their " best wishes freighted^ ^ — they in- 



852 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

dulge in wonderful erudition about Columbus, De 
Gama, Cook, La Perouse, and Magellan, and they 
wind up with the pleasant tangible, of requesting his 
acceptance of a durable memorial of his visit to 
China, as a testimony of the estimation in which they 
held his public services and private character. 

U. S. Flag-ship Mississippi, 

Hong Kong, September 7, 1854. 

Gentlemen : It is impossible for me to find words sufficiently" 
expressive of my profound thanks for the very flattering praise which 
you, in your prodigal kindness and generosity, have bestowed upon 
me in your communication of the 4th instant. 

In the execution of my duties as commander of the East India 
squadron, and with special reference to the mission to Japan, I am 
unconscious of having done more than might have been expected of 
me as a zealous and loyal officer. 

The testimonial of which you speak will be received with the 
highest gratification, and my children will be enjoined to treasure it 
as a memorial of the many favors their father had received from his 
fellow-countrymen in China. 

In separating myself from those with whom I have been so long 
and so agreeably associated, I can not but hope that we shall all meet 
again in our own happy country ; and with this, pleasant anticipation, 
I subscribe myself, with every feeling of sincere friendship and re- 
spect, 

Your obliged and most obedient servant, 

M. C. Perry. 

The '' durable memorial " was understood to be a 
service of silver, since made in the United States, 
and perhaps none the less brilliant because opium 
syce may have paid for it ; and, as a change must have 
come over the commodore's dream, for on the 9th of 
October, 1853, he writes to the secretary of the navy : 



TREATY WITH JAPAN. 853 

" The most profitable branch of trade carried on by 
many of the Americans, English, and other foreigners, 
is of a clandestine character, in violation of the laws 
of China and the stipulations of the Gushing treaty ; 
and it is difiicult for a naval commander, in extending 
the protection of his ship, to distinguish between the 
property engaged in the legal or illegal trade." And 
in concluding the same despatch, he says : " In my 
business with Japan, where as yet there are no Amer- 
ican merchants, or diplomatic agents, I have the as- 
surance of not being interfered with, and shall be 
able to act with energy and promptitude, and without 
embarrassment, and whether successful or otherwise, 
the responsibility will all rest upon myself." 

Then comes an epistle from four little Malwa and 
Patna " tuft-hunters" of Hong Kong, who also like to 
make Judy Fitzsimmons of themselves. After giving 
"His Excellency" much that is fulsome and adula- 
tory, they speak of his having opened the " commerce^^ 
of Japan, " not only to us, but to the world." What 
nonsense. 

We have no commercial treaty with Japan, but only 
one " of peace and amity," and strange that the news- 
papers will persist in saying so. Mischief may come 
of it in inducing some Yankee trader to go there with 
an assorted cargo, who will be very apt to have his 
labor for his pains. 

But for the seriousness of speech that marked the 
presentation to " His Excellency," by the governor 



354 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

of Rhode Island, on behalf of its general assembly, 
of a splendid salver, having on it '' in testimony of 
their appreciation of his services to his comitry in 
negotiating a treaty of amity and commerce with Ja- 
pan," together with the commodore's teaching the 
heathen the observance of the Sabbath^ that worthy 
functionary would be deemed waggish. 

On the morning of the 11th of September, being 
the ninth day, of the ninth moon, of the fourth year 
of the reign of Hien-fung, Commodore Matthew Cal- 
braith Perry left in the English mail-steamer Ganges 
for home ; the Mississippi and the Macedonian firing 
the parting salute, and the men in the rigging giving 
three cheers. 

We were to have taken our final leave of the grand, 
celestial, central, middle, flowery kingdom, on the 
same day, but it stormed, and we did not leave until 
the next morning, and few, if any, saw the naked 
hills of Hong Kong fade in the distance with regret. 
A few hours before us, the poor Porpoise got under 
way and left the port — that port to which her sail 

" Should never stretch again." 

This was the last that was seen of her, and she no 
doubt foundered in the typhoon of the 7th of Octo- 
ber, encountered by the Mississippi* which noble old 
ship struggled and maintained her existence for mor- 
tal hours under the force of a hurricane, and received 
the terrific blows of the infuriated sea more bravely 



SIMODA. 355 

than did the black knight under the pounding of the 
stalwart friar — if aught inanimate " can have bra- 
very, all honor to thee, old ship ! and with more fer- 
vency than blesses the bridge that carries us over, 
honor to thee, old ship, again ! 

We stood up the Formosa channel, and in nine 
days were entering again the harbor of Simoda. 
We found here the Susquehanna and the Southamp- 
ton. The former vessel left for the Sandwich Islands 
on the 24th of September. The stormy season hav- 
ing commenced in that latitude, it was too rough for 
us to commence coaling for several days, from the 
storeship. We ascertained that the Susquehanna had 
buried Surgeon Hamilton at Simoda, making the third 
interment in the contracted American burial-place. 
The shafts over the tombs were well proportioned, 
the letters of the inscriptions, with the imitative art 
of the Mongolian race, cut with exactness, and gild- 
ed, and the cap-stones, an original ornament, seeming 
to blend an urn and an acorn. 

Captain Lee, of the Mississippi, with a suite of offi- 
cers, made an official call on the lieutenant-governor 
of the now imperial city of Simoda, and was received 
with marked courtesy, and entertained in the Japa- 
nese style. The little strips resembling fried eel were 
as attractive as fried snake, but the crystallized 
grapes, with indifferent sugar, were rather palatable. 
There was handed around a small berry, not unpleas- 
ant to the taste, resembling the haw cultivated. The 



356 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

old Eip Van Winkle — Yemanese Koso — plied his 
guests with the little thimbles of imperial saki, that 
he might unite with them. 

Captain Lee returned these civilities with a colla- 
tion on board of his ship, and treated the Japanese 
to the music of the Mississippi's fine band, of which 
they are unaffectedly fond. He had a correspondence 
with the authorities relative to the absence of the 
spar-buoys which had been placed to mark dangerous 
rocks in the harbor. They replied that they had 
been washed away by the severe gales preceding our 
arrival, but that they would replace them, which 
they did. 

During this visit the Japanese displayed much wil- 
lingness to trade with us — that is, if trading means 
to sell everything you can for Spanish dollars and 
takes nothing else in return. There was one instance 
only to tbe contrary. An intelligent engineer of the 
ship had a revolver ; a Japanese officer wished it very 
much. He was told that he could have it for so many 
its-evoos^ which the penalty for permitting to pass out 
of the country was very great. He offered a large 
amount in silver dollars. No ; at last his cupidity for 
the pistol overcame his fear for the consequences, and 
he paid for it in the its-evoos^ and disappeared over 
the side. These were about the only Japanese coins 
that were procured during our stay in the country. 
Were you to offer one of the barbers of the country, 
" whose name is legion," a piece of silver for one of 



THE HO-0-MARO. 367 

tlieir cash — the twelfth of a cent — he would be glad 
to have it, but the inexorable law is ever before his eyes. 

At Simoda we found a junk bound to Yedo with a 
large mortar aboard, purchased from the Dutch ; 
also the model of an English boat. 

We ascertained, that Kyama Yezimon, under the 
permission of the emperor, had built a three-masted 
ship on the model of the Southampton, they alleging, 
that she was our fastest sailing ship, or made the 
shortest trips. Her trial-trip had given them much 
satisfaction, up the bay from Uraga. They painted 
her red, with black stripes, and called her the Ho-o- 
maro, meaning " sea-ship." 

Captain Lee distributed among the imperial officers 
of the place, and suite, a number of cotton-cloths of 
various kinds from New England. They took them, 
because it was the part of politeness to take them, 
rather than because they had any use for them. 
The upper class would not use them, the scanty ward- 
robe of the poorer class does not need them, unless 
they could be educated to breeches, nor could they 
purchase them. There are times when they can not 
get enough to eat ; indeed it is said, that there was 
a famine in the land at the time of the visit of the 
Morrison, in 1836. The fact is the Japanese are a 
people of few wants, and no luxuries, and the great 
trade prophesied with that country, should we ever 
get a commercial treaty, is a mere myth and exists 
in the brain of visionaries alone. I deliberately be- 



358 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

lieve, that any clipper-ship, that would go there with 
the hopes of a profitable venture, would rot at her 
anchors, before she disposed of her cargo, or got 
anything profitable in return. 

The Mississippi took her final departure from 
Japan on the 1st of October, towing the Southamp- 
ton as far as Volcanic Oho Sima, where the ships 
parted company. Foogee was hid. 

In February last, Commander H. A. Adams, visited 
Simoda in the Powhatan and exchanged the ratifica- 
tion of our treaty with the Japanese, but not with- 
out some delay and difficulty. The Japanese afi'ected 
to be much surprised at his early return, and con- 
tended, that the treaty said, that the exchange of 
ratifications was to be in eighteen months. Captain 
Adams contended, that our copy said within eighteen 
months, and that we had a right to send it back as 
soon as we liked. After some delay in getting the 
originals from Yedo and examining them, this matter 
was settled. 

When they were asked for the signature of the 
emperor to accompany that of the president, they 
said that was impossible : that he never put his name 
to any document whatever. The captain then re- 
sorted to a little bullying — the thing which had been 
so successfully practised upon them by the opperbe- 
velhebber — and told them, he would not like to 
carry back such an answer to his country — ^that if 



EARTHQUAKE AT SIMODA. 359 

we could Iiave imagined such a thing, our secre- 
tary of state only would have signed the ratification, 
and not the president. They came down and gave 
the signature of the emperor — that is a lot of 
snakes' tails, flies' legs, and triangles, which for all 
we know, were but there by Tatsnoski, or any other 
functionary. 

The appearance of Simoda after the frightful earth- 
quake there in December, was sad in the extreme. 
The town was piled in ruins, and junks had been car- 
ried a distance of two miles into neighboring fields. 

The Eussian admiral Pontiatine was at Simoda, 
during the terrible convulsion, and seeing nothing 
desirable about the port, had been insisting upon Oas- 
sacca, the seaport of the city of Meaco, as one of 
the places to be granted his country, but the wreck- 
ing of his ship, the Diana, by the earthquake, left 
him in no condition to insist upon his point with force, 
so he was compelled to consent to Simoda. 

The implicit obedience to their laws, under what- 
ever circumstances, by the Japanese, was shown at 
the wrecking and sinking of a junk, that drifted afoul 
of the Diana and was stove. Two of her crew only 
clung to the Diana, the rest stolidly sunk with the 
junk. Those saved were asked the cause of this 
strange conduct on the part of their late comrades. 
They said it was, that their laws forbid them going 
on board of a foreign vessel ; nor did they know what, 
would be done with themselves for it. 



360 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

If it be the best government which governs least, 
that is not the government of Japan ; like the law of 
gravitation it is always in action : its Briarian arms 
are everywhere, and its subjects are a community of 
Arguses. When storm is on the deep and its mari- 
ners are clinging to their long tillers and shuddering 
at the yawning sea, each lightning flash of heaven 
shows them an etiolating hand, that will crush them, 
if they dare leave their craft, until half engulfed. 

The English and* French squadrons visited Nanga- 
saki, and negotiated their treaty there ; though their 
freedom of movement was greatly restricted. Their 
masters were only allowed to land on a small barren 
island to rate their chronometers ; during the confer- 
ences some of their officers were taken to task by the 
Japanese for spitting on their matting. 

The cruise of the United States steam-frigate Mis- 
sissippi under the command of a fine officer and 
estimable gentleman — Sydney Smith Lee, during 
the years 1852, '53, '54, and '55, was one full of 
interest. She is the third war-steamer, that ever cir- 
cumnavigated the globe, and during her cruise sailed 
a distance more than twice its circumference. She 
visited places, too, unusual. 

The writer wishes that the time had been afforded 
him to give an outline of the terrible typhoon, which 
she encountered in the North Pacific ocean on the 7th 
of October, 1854 — how we saw two Mondays, or two 



CONCLUSION. 361 

16tlis of October, come together in the same week — 
Honolulu — California — Taboga — stay at Valparaiso 
— the brilliant dash of the old ship, with a chasing 
gale, into the straits of Magellan : of her subsequent 
run through them ^' amid snow and glacier" — the 
firing of the '' 22d of February" salute, which was 
heard by the Patagonian — Rio Janeiro, &c., but this 
would make our narrative of undue length. 

16 



APPENDIX. 



SAILING DIRECTIONS FOR NAPA, ISLAND GREAT 
LOO-CHOO. 

By Lieute^tant S. Bent, U. S. Navy. 

This is the principal seaport of the island, and perhaps the only 
One possessing the privileges of a port of entry. 

Its inner, or Junk harbor, has a depth of water of from two to 
three fathoms, and though small, is sufficiently large to accommodate 
with ease, the fifteen or twenty moderate-sized junks which are usu- 
ally found moored in it. These are mostly Japanese, with a few 
Chinese and some small coasting craft, which seem to carry on a slug- 
gish trade with the neighboring islands. 

The outer harbor is protected to the eastward and southward by 
the main land, while in other directions it is surrounded by merely a 
chain of coral reefs, which answer as a tolerable breakwater against 
a swell from the northward or westward, but affords of course, no 
shelter from the wind. The holding ground is so good, however, that 
a well-found ship could ride out here almost any gale in safety. 

The clearest approach to Napa from the westward, is by passing 
to the northward of the Amakarima islands and sighting Agenhu 
island, whence steer a S. E. course for the harbor, passing on 
either side of Reef islands, being careful, however, not to approach 
them too near on the western and southern sides, as the reefs below 
water in these directions, are said to be more extensive than is shown 
by the charts. 

Aiter clearing Reef islands, bring Wood Hill to bear S. S. E., when 



S64 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

stand down for it, until getting upon the line of bearing for South 
channel. This will carry you well clear of Blossom reef, yet not so 
far off but that the White Tomb and clump of trees or bushes to the 
southward of Tumai Head can be easily distinguished. An E. N. 
E. J E., or E. N. E. course will now take you in clear of all dan- 
gers, and give a good anchorage on or near the seven-fathom bank, 
about half a mile to the northward and westward of Ealse Capstan 
Head. This channel being perfectly straight, is more desirable for 
a stranger entering the harbor, than Oar channel, which, though 
wider, has the disadvantage of its being necessary for a vessel to 
alter her course some four or five points, just when she is in the midst 
of reefs, which are nearly all below the surface of the water. 

TO ENTER BY OAR CHANNEL. 

Bring the centre of the island in Junk harbor (known by the deep 
verdure of its vegetation), to fill the gap between the forts at the 
entrance of Junk harbor and steer a S. E. | E. course, until Cap- 
stan Head bears east, when haul up to E. N. E. and anchor as before 
directed. 

THE NORTH CHANNEL 

Is very much contracted by a range of detached rocks making out 
from the reef on the west side, and should not under ordinary cir- 
cumstances be attempted by a stranger ; as at high water the reefs 
are almost entirely covered, and it is difficult to judge of your exact 
position, unless familiar with the various localities and landmarks. 
To enter by this (North) channel, bring a remarkable notch in the 
southern range of hills, in line with a small hillock just to the east- 
ward of False Capstan Head and stand in on this range S. by E. i E. 
until Tumai Head bears E. | N., when open a little to the south- 
ward, so as to give the reef to the eastward a berth, and select your 
anchorage. 

There is a black spar-buoy anchored on Blossom reef half way be- 
tween its eastern and western extremities, a red spar-buoy on the point 
of reef to the W. N. Wd of Abbey point, and a white spar-buoy on 
the southeast extremity of Oar reef. Flags of corresponding colors 
are attached to all these buoys, and they afford good guides for the 
South and Oar channels. There are two large stakes on the reefs to 
the eastward and westward of North channel, planted there by the 
natives, this being the channel mostly used by junks trading to the 
northward. 

An abundance of water can always be obtained at the fountains in 



APPENDIX. 365 

Junk river, where there is excellent landing for boats. There is a 
good spring near the tombs in Tumai bluff, but unless the water is 
perfectly smooth the landing is impracticable, and under any circum- 
stances it is inconvenient from the want of sufficient depth, except 
at high tide. 

It is directed by the commander-in-chief that the vessels of the 
squadron under his command, shall heave to, on approaching Napa, 
and make signal for a pilot, when an officer familiar with the locali- 
ties and landmarks will be sent off from the vessel in port to pilot 
her in, or point to her commander the position of the dangers to be 
avoided. 

Should there, however, be no vessel in port, then boats are to be 
sent ahead, and anchored upon the extremities of the reefs, between 
which the vessel intends to pass, 

Macao, October 1, 1853. 

Note. — The spar-buoys, above described, were securely moored at 
the time they were placed in their respective positions, by order of 
Commodore Perry, but may be displaced, or entirely removed by the 
heave of the sea, or by the natives, and should therefore not be en- 
tirely relied upon. 



OONTING, on POUT MELLVILLE, ISLAND GKEAT 
LOO-CHOO. 

By Lieutenant S. Bent, U. S. Navy. 

OoNTiNG harbor is on the N. W. side of Loo-Choo, and distant 
about thirty-five miles from Napa. 

Sugar Loaf island, an excellent landmark, lies about twelve miles 
to the W. N. Wd of the entrance. The island is low and flat, with 
the exception of a sharp conical peak near its eastern extremity^ 
which rises to a height of several hundred feet. 

Passing to the northward of Sugar Loaf island, an E. S. easterly 
course will bring you to the mouth of the harbor, and to the northward 
and westward of Kooi island. It is advisable to heave to here, or an- 
chor in twenty or twenty-five fathoms water, until boats or buoys can 
be placed along the edges of the reefs bordering the channel, for with- 
out some such guides, it is difficult for a vessel of large draft to find 
her way in between the reefs, which contract, in places, to within a 
cable's length of each other, and are at all times covered with water. 



366 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

The ranges and courses for the channel, are first : Hele rock in 
range with double-topped mountain bearing south thirty-seven 
degrees east. Steer this course, keeping the range on until Chim- 
ney rock bears S. i E. ; then for Chimney rock, until Point Conde 
bears south forty-nine degrees east ; then for Point Conde, until en- 
tering the basin of Oonting, when anchor ; giving your ship room 
to swing clear of the reef making out to the northward of Point 
Conde, and you will be as snug as if lying in dock; with good 
holding ground, completely land-locked, and sheltered almost en- 
tirely from every wind. 

Good water is to be had at the village of Oonting. 



SAILING DIRECTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS, UPON 
LLOYD HARBOR, BONIN ISLANDS. 

From Reports op Acting Masters Madigan and Bennett, 
OE' THE U. S. Ships Saratoga and Susquehanna. 

The entrance to the harbor of Port Lloyd, on the v/estern side of 
Peel island, one of the Bonin group, is well defined ; so that it can 
scarcely be mistaken. 

A ship bound in, would do well to place a boat on the shoal, that 
makes off south from the eastern point of Square Rock, as it is called 
on Beechy's harbor chart. This shoal can be easily seen from aloft, 
however, even when there is no swell on. It extends full two cables 
length from Square Rock to the southward, and is steep. The centre 
of the shoal is awash with a smooth sea. The tide rises about three 
feet, and there is a coral rock about one cablets length north from the 
northern point of Southern Head, on v/hich I found eight feet water. 
But a ship entering the harbor would not be likely to approach South- 
ern Head so near as to be upon it. This island, as well as those sur- 
rounding it, is chiefly visited by whale-ships, and its products, there- 
fore, are such as to suit their wants. 

Potatoes, yams, and other vegetables, fruits of various kinds, to- 
gether with wild hogs and goats can be procured from the few whites 
and Sandwich-islanders — thirty five in all — settled there. Wood is 
good and plentiful, and water can be had, though in limited quanti- 
ties, and slightly tainted by the coral rocks from which it springs. 

The anchorage is fair, though open to the south and west. The 
reconnoissance made by order of the commander-in-chief, proved the 
accuracy of Captain Beechy's chart. 



APPENDIX. 867 

Mr. Bennet, acting master of the Susquehanna, says in his report : 
^' Assuming the position of Napa in Great Loo-Choo island, as estab- 
lished by Beechy, to be correct, I find by the mean of my chronom- 
eters, that he has placed Ten-Eathom Hole, in Port Lloyd, five 
miles too far to the westward, and consequently the whole group is 
placed that much to the westward of its true position/' 



SAILING DIRECTIONS EOK THE HARBOR OF SIMODA. 

By Lieutenant Wm. L. Maury, U. S. Navy. 

U. S. Steam-Erigate Mississippi, 
Honolulu, October 26, 1854. 

Vessels bound to the harbor of Simoda, to the southward and 
westward, should make Cape Idzu, from which Rock island bears E, 
S. E. I E., distant about five miles ; and if the weather is at all 
clear, the chain of islands at the entrance of the gulf of Yedo will at 
the same time be plainly visible. 

Between Rock island and the main land, there are a number of 
rocks awash and above water, among which the Japanese junks freely 
pass, but a ship should not attempt a passage inside of Rock island, 
unless in case of urgent necessity, particularly as the northeasterly 
current, which sweeps along this coast, seems to be, at this point, 
capricious, both in direction and velocity. 

Giving Rock island a berth of a mile, the harbor of Simoda will 
be in full view, bearing N. | W., distant five miles. 

Yandalia Blufi*, on the east side of the entrance, may be recog- 
nised by a grove of pine-trees on the summit of the bluff, and the vil- 
lage of Susaki, which lies about one third of the v/ay between it and 
Cape Diamond. Cape Diamond is a sharp point making out to the 
eastward of the entrance of the harbor. 

Standing in from Rock island, you will probably pass through a 
number of tide rips, but not get soundings with the hand lead, until 
near the entrance of the harbor, when you will be in from fourteen to 
twenty-seven fathoms. 

Should the wind be from the northward and fresh, a vessel should 
anchor at the mouth of the harbor until it lulls or shifts, or until 
she can conveniently warp in, as it is usually flawy and always baf- 
fling. 

Approaching from the northward and eastward, a vessel can pass 
on either side of Oho Sima, from the centre, of which Cape Diamond 
bears W. S. W. | W., distant about tv^enty miles. 



368 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Between Oho Sima and Simoda no dangers are known to exist ; 
but the northeasterly current must be borne constantly in mind — 
particularly at night and in thick weather. Its general strength is 
from two to three miles per hour; but as this, as well as its direction, 
is much influenced by the local wind, headlands, islands, &c., neither 
can be relied upon. 

Should Oho Sima be obscured by thick weather, before reacliing 
Cape Diamond, endeavor to sight Kock island, for there are no very 
conspicuous objects on the main land, by which a stranger can rec- 
ognise the harbor at a distance, and the shore appears as one un- 
broken line. 

To the westward of the harbor there are several sand beaches, and 
three or four sand banks, These can be plainly discerned when with- 
in six or eight miles, and are good landmarks. 

A vessel from the southward and eastward should pass to the west- 
ward of the island of Kozu Sima,^ which may be known by a re- 
markable snow-white cliff on its western side. There is also a white 
patch on its summit, to the northward of the cliff. From this island 
the harbor bears N. by W. J W., distant about twenty-eight miles. 

There are but two hidden dangers in the harbor ; the first is the 
Southampton rock, which lies in mid-channel, bearing N. | W. from 
Vandalia bluff, about three fourths of the way between it and 
Centre island. This rock is about twenty-five feet in diameter, and 
has two fathoms water upon it. It is marked by a white spar-buoy. 

The second is the Supply rock. Bearing S. by W., a short dis- 
tance from Buisako islet, and is a sharp rock, with eleven feet water 
upon it. Its position is designated by a red spar-buoy. 

Both of these buoys are securely moored, and the authorities of 
Simoda have promised to replace them, should they by any cause be 
removed. 

Centre island, which receives its name from being the point from 
which the treaty limits are measured, is high, conical, and covered 
with trees. A cave passes entirely through it. 

In the outer roads, or mouth of the harbor, a disagreeable swell is 
sometimes experienced ; but inside of the Southampton rock and 
Centre island, vessels are well sheltered, and the water compara- 
tively smooth. Moor with an open hawse to the southward and west- 
ward. 

There are good landings for boats in Simoda creek, and at the vil- 
lage of Kakizaki. 

* This is the most southwestern island of the chain of islands lying off the 
Gulf of Yedo. 



APPENDIX. 369 

A harbor-master and three pilots have been appointed ; wood, 
water, fish, fowls, and eggs, also sweet potatoes and other vegetables 
may be procured from the authorities. It is necessary to supply them 
with casks to bring the water off. 

Latitude Centre island 34° 39' 49'' N. 

Longitude " " 138'^ 57' 50" E. 

Variation 52 ' westerly. 

High Water, F. and C 5 hours. 

Extreme rise of tide 5 ft. 7 in. 

Mean " " 3 ft. 

To make the foregoing directions more easily comprehended, they 
have been rendered as concise as possible, but to furnish further in- 
formation to navigators bound to, or passing the port, the following 
additional remarks are appended : — 

The harbor of Simoda is near the southeastern extremity of the 
peninsula of Idzu, which terminates at the cape of that name. To 
the northward of the harbor, a high ridge intersects the peninsula, and 
south of this, all the way to the cape, it is broken by innumerable 
peaks of less elevation. 

The harbor bears S. W. by W. from Cape Sagami, at the entrance 
of Yedo bay, distant about 45 miles. 

Rock island is about 120 feet high, and a third of a mile in length, 
with precipitous shores and uneven outlines. It has a thick matting 
of grass, weeds, moss, &c., on the top. 

From the summit of this island overfalls were seen, bearing N. 
J W., distant a mile, or mile and a half. These may have been caused 
by a rock or reef. An attempt was made to find it, but the strong 
current and fresh wind prevented a satisfactory examination. The 
Japanese fishermen, however, deny the existence of any such danger* 

N. by W. from Rock island, distant 2 miles, are the TJkona rocks. 
These are two rocks, though they generally appear as one. The 
largest is about 70 feet high. Between these and Rock island, the 
current was found setting east-northeasterly, fully four miles an hour. 

Centre island bears from Rock island N. J E., distant 5j miles, 
and from Ukona rocks N. by E. J E., distant 34 miles. 

Buisako islet lies N. N. E. from Centre island. It is about 40 feet 
high, and covered with trees and shrubs. 

Should the buoy on Southampton rock be removed, the east end 
of Centre island on with the west end of Buisako, will clear the rock 
to the westward. 

Off the village of Susaki, and distant one third of a mile from the 
shore, is a ledge of rocks, upon which the surf is always breaking ; 
give them a berth of two cables in passing, 

16* 



370 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

Approaching from the eastward, the harbor will not open until you 
get well inside of Cape Diamond. 

To the northv/ard of Cape Diamond is the bay of Sirahama, which 
is quite deep, and as it has also several sand-beaches, it may bo 
mistaken for Simoda ; but as you approach this bay, Cape Diamond 
will shut in the Ukona rocks, and Eock island to the southward; 
while in the Simoda roads they are visible from all points. 

Cape Idzu, latitude 34° 36' 03'' N. 

" longitude 138° 52' 32" E. 

Eock Island, latitude 34° 34' 20" N. 

longitude 138° 57' 10" E. 

S. W. 5 W. from Kozu-Sima, distant about 20 miles, and south, a 
little westerly, from Cape Idzu, distant about 40 miles, there are two 
patches of dangerous rocks, 1 5 or 20 feet high, which have been named 
Eedfield rocks. They are in — Latitude 33° 56' 13" N., Longitude 
138^ 48' 31" E.; and Latitude 33^ 57' 31" N., Longitude 138^ 
49' 13" E. 

These positions may not be strictly correct, but it is believed they 
are not much out of the way. 

Several errors in the first edition of these directions, published in July last, 
have been corrected in the above. — W. L. M. 



SAILING DIEECTIONS FOE YEDO. 
By Lieut. Wm. L. Maury, U. S. N. 

Vessels from the southward, bound to this bay, should pass up to 
the westward of the chain of islands lying off the gulf of Yedo, and 
are cautioned against mistaking the deep bight of Kawatsu bay for 
the entrance of Uraga channel, for on the northeast side of this bay 
there is a ledge of rocks several miles from the shore, bearing from 
Cape Sagami about W. N. W., distant ten miles, upon which one of 
the vessels of our squadron grounded. A stranger without a correct 
chart would naturally make this mistake, as the opening of the chan- 
nel is not seen at a distance from this quarter, the shore appearing as 
an unbroken line. 

The entrance to the channel bears from the centre of Oho-Sima N. 
E. by N., distant about twenty miles. Stand in upon this line, and 
the Saddle hill to the northward of Cape Sagami will be readily rec- 
ognised, as well as the round black knob on the eastern side of the 



APPENDIX. 871 

channel. On approaching Uraga, the Plymouth rocks will be plain- 
ly seen ; give these a berth of half a mile to clear the Ingersoll Patch, 
a sunken rock with but one fathom on it, and which is the only known 
danger in the channel. 

Between Plymouth rocks and Cape Kami-Saki, the ground is clear 
and the anchorage good, if care be taken to get pretty well in, so as 
to avoid the strong tides which sweep round the latter with great 
rapidity. A spit makes out a short distance to the southward of 
Kami-Saki ; but to the northward of the cape, the shore is bold, and 
the water very deep. 

On rounding Cape Kami-Saki, if bound for the city of Yedo, steer 
N. W. by N., until Perry island bears S. by W. | W., so as to clear 
Saratoga spit, which extends well out from the eastern shore ; then 
haul up, keeping Perry island upon this bearing until the beacon on 
the low point to the southward of Yedo bears W. N. W. This clears 
the shoal off the point, and here there is good anchorage in about ten 
fathoms water, in full view of the city of Yedo. 

At this point our survey terminated ; the boats, how^ever, found a 
clear channel, with plenty of water for the largest vessels, several miles 
farther to the northward, and within a few miles of the city. 

If bound to the American anchorage, from Cape Kami-Saki, steer 
N. W., and anchor in eight or ten fathoms water, with Perry island 
bearing S. S. E., and Webster island S. W. by S. 

To the southward of Webster island there is also good anchorage 
in six and seven fathoms. Near this anchorage, there are two snug 
coves, very accessible, in which vessels may conveniently repair and 
refit. 

Susquehanna bay, three miles W. N. W. from Cape Kami-Saki, is 
well sheltered, but it contains a number of reefs and rocks, and is 
therefore not recommended as an anchorage. 

Mississippi bay is four miles north of the American anchorage ; it 
is well sheltered from the prevailing winds. Upon anchoring it is 
necessary to give the shore a wide berth, to avoid a shoal which 
extends out from half to three quarters of a mile. The conspicuous 
headland, or long yellow bluff, on the north side of this bay, is called 
Treaty point ; a shoal surrounds the point from two thirds of a mile 
to a mile distant. 

Between the American anchorage and Treaty point, the soundings 
are irregular, shoaling suddenly from twelve to five fathoms on a 
bank of hard sand. 

To the northward of Treaty point, and N. N. W. from Cape Kami- 
Saki, distant fourteen miles, is Yokuhama bay. To reach this an- 
chorage, bring the wooded bluff which terminates the high land on 



372 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

the north side of the bay to bear N. by W. | W., and steer for it until 
Treaty point bears S. W. by S. — (this clears the spit off the point) ; 
then haul up about N. W. by N. for the bluff over the town of Kana- 
gawa, and anchor in five and a half or six fathoms, with the Haycock 
just open to the eastward of Mandarin bluff. Mandarin is the steep 
bluff a mile to the northward of Treaty point. 

A flat extends out from the northern shore of this bay, between 
Kanagawa and Beacon point from one to two miles ; off Mandarin 
bluff there is also a shoal extending a mile to the northward. 

The bay of Yedo is about twelve miles wide, and thirtj'^ deep, with 
excellent holding-ground, and capable of sheltering the fleets of the 
world. 

Our survey embraced the western shore only, from Cape Kami- 
Saki to Beacon point. We had no opportunity of examining the 
eastern side. The soundings from Treaty point across in an E. S. E. 
direction are regular, and three fathoms were found about a mile and 
a half from the opposite shore. 

Of Uraga channel, a reconnoissance was made of the western shore 
only. 

During our stay in the bay, from the 17th February to the 18th 
April, the weather was generally fine, being occasionally interrupted 
by strong winds and heavy rain. The gales came up suddenly from 
the southward and westward with a low barometer, and continued for 
a short time, when the wind hauled round to the northward and west- 
ward, and moderated. We had no easterly blows ; in fact, the wind 
was rarely from this quarter, except when hauling round from the 
northward (as it invariably did) by east to the southward and west- 
ward. 

The tide is quite strong out in the bay ; and off the tail of Saratoga 
spit. Perry island, and Cape Kami-Saki, its velocity is much increased. 
But at the anchorage in the bay of Yokuhama it was scarcely felt. At 
Yokuhama the Japanese authorities supplied us with wood and water, 
and a few vegetables, fowls, eggs, oysters, and clams. 

Latitude, Cape Sagami 35^ 06^ 30'' 

Longitude, " .139° 40' 

Latitude, Webster Island 35° 18' 30" 

Longitude, '' " 139° 40' 34'' 

Latitude of Treaty building, north end of 

Yokuhama 35° 26' 44" 

Longitude, " " 139° 40' 23" 

Variation 25' westerly. 

High Water, F. and C 6 hours. 

Eise and fall at Yokuhama 6 feet. 



APPENDIX. 373 

SAILING DIRECTIONS FOR THE PORT OF HAKODADI. 
By Lieutenant Wm. L. Maury^ U. S. N. 

United States Steam-Frigate Mississippi, 1 
At Sea, July 20, 1854. ) 

This splendid and beautiful bay, which for accessibility and safety 
is one of the finest in the world, lies on the north side of the straits 
of Sangar, which separate the Japanese islands of Nippon and Yeso, 
and about midway between Cape SirijaSaki-^ (the N. E. point of Nip- 
pon), and the city of Matsmai. It bears from the cape N. W. \ W., 
distant about 45 miles, and is about 4 miles wide at tiie entrance, and 
5 miles deep. 

The harbor is the southeastern arm of the baj^, and is completely 
sheltered, with regular soundings and excellent holding ground. It 
is formed by a bold-peaked promontory, standing well out from the 
high land of the main, with which it is connected by a low sandy isth- 
mus, and whici), appearing at a distance as an island, may be easily 
recognised. 

The town is situated on the northeast slope of the promontory, 
facing the harbor, and contains about 6,000 inhabitants. 

Approaching from the eastward, after passing Cape Suwu Kubo, 
named on our chart Cape Blunt, which is a conspicuous headland 12 
miles E. by S. from the town, the junks at anchor in the harbor will 
be visible over the low isthmus. 

FOR ENTERING THE HARBOR. 

Rounding the promontory of Hakodadi, and giving it a berth of a 
mile, to avoid the calms under the high land, steer for the sharp peak 
of Komaga daki, bearing about N., until the east peak of the Saddle, 
bearing about N. E. by N., opens to the westward of the round knob 
on the side of the mountain, then haul up to the northward and east- 
ward, keeping them open until the centre of the sandhills on the isth- 
mus bears S. E. by E. £ E. ; these may be recognised by the dark 
knolls upon them. This will clear a spit which makes out from the 
northwestern point of the town in a north-northwesterly direction 
two thirds of a mile ; then bring the sandhills a point on the port bow, 
and stand in until the northwestern point of the town bears S. W. 5 W., 
when you will have the best berth, with 5 J or 6 fathoms water. If it 

* Saki, in the Japanese language, means Cape, conseqnenlly it should more 
properly be called Cape Sirija ; but to prevent mistakes it has been thought ad- 
visable to adopt the Japanese names. 



374 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

is desirable to get nearer in, haul up a littlato the eastv/ard of S., for 
the low rocky peak which will be just visible over the sloping ridge 
to the southward and eastward of the town. A vessel of moderate 
draught may approach within a quarter of a mile of Tsuki point, 
where there is a building-yard for junks. This portion of the harbor, 
however, is generally crowded with vessels of this description ; and, 
unless the want of repairs, or some other cause, renders a close berth 
necessary, it is better to remain outside. 

If the Peak or Saddle is obscured by clouds or fog, after doubling 
the promontory, steer N. by E. J E., until the sandhills are brought 
upon the bearing above given, when proceed as there directed. 

A short distance from the tail of the spit is a detached sandbank, 
with 3 1 fathoms on it. The outer edge of this is marked by a white 
spar-buoy. Between this and the spit there is a narrow channel with 
5 or 6 fathoms water. Vessels may pass on either side of the buoy, 
but it is most prudent to go to the northward of it. 

Should the wind fail before reaching the harbor, there is good an- 
chorage in the outer roads, in from 25 to 10 fathoms. 

Excellent wood and water may be procured from the authorities of 
the town ; or, if preferred, water can be easily obtained from Kamida 
creek, which enters the harbor to the northward and eastward of the 
town. 

The season, at the time of our visit, was unfavorable for procuring 
supplies ; a few sweet and Irish potatoes, eggs, and fowls, however, 
were obtained, and these articles, at a more favorable period of the 
year, will no doubt be furnished in sufficient quantities to supply any 
vessels that may in future visit the port. 

Our seine supplied us with fine salmon and a quantity of other fish, 
and the shores of the bay abound with excellent shell-fish. 

During our stay in this harbor, from the 17th May to .3d June, the 
weather was generally pleasant until the 1 st June, v/hen the fog set 
in. It was usually calm in the morning, but toward the middle of the 
day a brisk breeze from S. W. sprung up. 

Latitude, mouth of Kamida creek 41° 49' 22'' N. 

Longitude, " " " 140° 47' 45" E. 

Variation. . , 4° 30' W. 

High Water, F. and C 5 hours. 

Extreme rise and fall of tide 3 feet. 

Our chronometers were rated at Napa Kiang, Loo-Choo, from the 
position of that place as given by Captain Beechy, R. N. 



APPENDIX. 376 



THE CURRENCY QUESTION. 

[In the text is given an account of the negotiations relative to the 
comparative value of the American and Japanese coin. It is thought 
as well to give the report of the pursers appointed to arrange the ques- 
tion, which will be found below.] 

United States Steam-Frigate Powhatan, ) 
SiMODA, June 15, 1854. ) 

Sir : The committee appointed bj you, in your letter of the 12th 
instant, to confer with a committee from the Japanese commissioners 
in reference to the rate of exchange and currency between the two 
nations in the trade at the ports opened, and to settle the price of coal 
to be delivered at this port, beg leave to report : — 

The Japanese committee, it was soon seen, came to the conference 
with their minds made up to adhere to the valuation they had already 
set upon our coins, even if the alternative was the immediate cessa- 
tion of trade. The basis upon which they made their calculation was 
the nominal rate at which the government sells bullion when it is pur- 
chased from the mint, and which seems also to be that by which the 
metal is received from the mines. The Japanese have a decimal sys- 
tem of weight, like the Chinese, of catty, tael, mace, candareen, and 
cash, by which articles in general are weighed ; but gold and silver 
are not reckoned above taels. In China a tael of silver in weight and 
one in currency are the same, for the Chinese have no silver coin ; but 
in Japan, as in European countries, the standard of value-weight and 
that of currency-weight differ. We were told that a tael weight of 
silver has now come to be reckoned, when it is bullion, as equal to 
225 candareens, or 2 taels, 2 mace, 5 candareens ; but when coined, 
the same amount in weight is held to be worth 6 taels, 4 mace. It is 
at the bullion value that the government has decided to receive our 
dollar, the same at which they take the silver from the mines ; assert- 
ing that, as its present die and assay give it no additional value, it is 
worth no more to them. In proportion to a tael, a dollar weighs 7 
mace, 1 1-5 candareen, which, at the rates of bullion value, makes it 
worth 1 tael, 6 mace, or 1,600 cash. Thus the Japanese government 
will make a profib of 66f per cent, on every dollar paid them of full 
weight, with th^. trifling deduction of the expense of recoining it. 
The injustice of this arrangement was shown, and the propriety of 
paying to the seller himself the coin we gave at this depreciated rate 
urged, but in vain. 



876 THE JAPAN EXPEDITION. 

For gold the rate is more, as the disparity between the value of 
bullion and that of coin, among the Japanese, is not so great. A tael 
weight of gold is valued at 19 taels in currency, and a mace at 1 tael, 
9 mace. The gold dollar weighs almost 5 candareens, but the Japa- 
nese have reckoned it as the twentieth part of a $20 piece, which they 
give as 8 mace, 8 candareens ; and, consequently, the dollar is only 4 
candareens, 4 cash. This weight brings the gold dollar, when com- 
pared with the tael of bullion gold worth 19 taels, to be worth 836 
cash, and the $20 piece to be worth 16,720 cash, or 16 taels, 7 mace, 
2 candareens. This, when converted into a silver value, makes a 
gold dollar worth 52f cents, and a $20 piece worth $10 45, at which 
the Japanese propose to take them. But this valuation of the gold 
dollar at 52 J cents, when reckoned at 836 cash, its assessed value by 
the Japanese government, suffers the same depreciation as our silver ; 
and its real value, when compared with the inflated currency in use 
among the people, is only about 17} cents. Consequently, by this 
estimate, gold becomes 50 per cent, worse for us to pay in than silver. 
The currency value of a gold dollar, taking the its-evoo as of equal 
purity, and comparing them weight for weight, is only 1,045 cash, or 
nearly 22 cents in silver ; so that the actual depreciation on the part 
of the Japanese is not so great as silver — being for the two metals, 
when weighed with each other, for silver as 100 to 33 1-3, and for gold 
as 22 to 17. The elements of this comparison are not quite certain, 
and therefore its results are somewhat doubtful ; but the extraordinary 
discrepancy of both metals, compared with our coins and with their 
own copper coins, shows how the government has inflated the whole 
monetary system in order to benefit itself. 

The parties could come to no agreement, as we declined to consent 
to the proposals of the Japanese, who were decided to adhere to their 
valuation of a silver dollar at 1 tael, 6 mace, or 1,600 cash; neither 
would they consent to do justly by us in relation to the moneys paid 
them at this place before our departure for Hakodadi, at the rate of 
only 1 tael, 2 mace, or 1,200 cash, to the dollar, by which they had 
made a profit of 76 per cent, on each dollar, stating that the money 
paid them at this rate had passed out of their hands ; and, moreover, 
that the prices placed upon the articles furnished had been charged 
at reduced prices with reference to the low value placed upon the 
dollar. 

For the amount due and unsettled, for supplies received at Yoku- 
hama, and on account of which Purser Eldredge paid Moriyama Yen- 
oske, imperial interpreter, $350 in gold and silver, that they might be 
assayed and tested at Yedo, they consent to receive the dollar at the 



APPENT)rs:. 377 

valuation now placed on them — that is, at the rate of 1,600 cash for 
the silver dollar. 

We carefollv mTestigated the price of the coal to be delivered to 
vessels in this port. We learn that 10,000 catties or 100 piculs have 
arrived; and this, at the rate of 1,680 catties to a ton of 2,240 ponnds, 
or 1 6 4-5 picols, costs 262 taels, 6 mace, 5 candareens, 3 cash, or $1 64 1 6 ; 
making the rate to be S27 91 per ton. The Japanese state that the 
price of coal would be considerably reduced as the demand for it in- 
creased, and their fecilities for mining became more perfect. 

In conclusion, we take pleasure in expressing our thanks to Messrs. 
Williams and Portman, whose services as interpreters were indispen- 
sable, and fi-om whom we received important aid in our investigations. 
We have the honor to be, respectfully, your obedient servants, 

Willi A3I Speidex, 

Purser U. S. yavy. 
J. C. Eldhedge, 

Purser U. S. Navy. 
Commodore M. C. Pebbt, 
Comrnander-in-CTiief U. S. Naval Forces 
in the East India and China Seas. 



TABLE OF JAPA^'ESE DISTANCES. 

Twenty-eight and one fifth Kee, make one degree. 
One Kee is equal to thirty-six Tsho. 
One Tsho is equal to sixty Ken. 

One Ken is equal to one Meter, and nine hundred and nine thou- 
sandth of a meter. 

A Meter is about 39 1-3 inches. 

Japanese Measitrement of the Heights ofFoogee Yama. 

Thirty-six Streets. 
One Street, sixty Tkis. 
One Iki, six Fans.* 
Six Fans, five American feet. 
* The fens used by the officials of Japan, are <rfa uniform size, and regiilated by 

THE E >- D . 



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